


Impostor Syndrome

by Infinite_Monkeys



Series: Family Ties [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically Lots of Adventures and Family Drama, Canon Divergence - Post-Thor (2011), Developing Friendships, Dramatic Irony, Gen, Happy Ending, Just Adoption, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Lots of family drama, No Incest, Really Twisted Family Trees, Shapeshifting, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Zombie Blasters, for plot reasons, identity theft, so much of that, that about sums it up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 18:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15274035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinite_Monkeys/pseuds/Infinite_Monkeys
Summary: Before Loki Odinson came his namesake: Loki Laufeyson, blood brother of Odin, locked away in a prison suspended in the void for his part in Baldr's death.At least, until a means to escape his confinement falls in after him.Thor keeps missing the subtle emphasis when Loki insists he isn'thisbrother.Or: the one where Hela isn't the only family member that Odin banished and buried, the original Loki is back for revenge, and the Loki we all know has to team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this has been in the works forever! It is pretty much finished at this point (just some last-minute editing before posting) so updates should be fairly frequent. 
> 
> A note on timelines: some things have been pushed around by the events of the story, so this takes place after the first Avengers Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume I. 
> 
> All of the characters and settings belong to Marvel, except for the one version of Loki I borrowed from Norse Mythology. That guy belongs to some ancient viking storytellers, probably.

Loki shuffled his feet on the bridge, the hum of the Tesseract singing against his palm. In his hand, yet just out of reach. He'd have gritted his teeth in frustration if the Norns-cursed muzzle wasn't in the way.  
  
Soon.  
  
At the other end of the shining cube, his blond oaf of a nephew eyed him warily. He glared back. What did the little twat think he was going to do, chained as he was, with his magic caged like an animal inside him?  
  
Thor's gaze flicked from him to the edge of the bridge, a few feet from where they walked.  
  
Ah. That.  
  
After a few more steps he faked towards the edge, just subtle enough to be disguised as a stumble, and laughed as Thor lunged toward him with naked panic written across his face, grabbing his upper arm hard enough to bruise. Or he would have laughed, if the muzzle hadn't sent a sharp pain stabbing through his face. Biting back frustration, he reigned in his anger and let his eyes do the laughing for him.  
  
"You think this amusing, brother?"  
  
He rolled his eyes, putting the words "not your brother" into the motion as best he could. Of course, this way he couldn't subtly stress the word _your_ , an emphasis that had gone, thus far, unnoticed or ignored. His right thumb rubbed his left palm, the thin scar barely more than a line of raised skin.  
  
Thor seemed to understand at least the first part of the message. "You are still my brother, Loki," he said, and by the norns, he _meant_  it, "even if I am angry with you right now." And wasn't that an understatement. "That was not funny. When you fell into the void..."  
  
Loki tuned out the story of the royal family's grief as they resumed walking, turning his attention back to the Tesseract. It sang, a melody just at the edge of his awareness, calling to him, taunting him with its closeness. It would take so little to claim it now. The magic he had spent careful days pouring into it sang with the rest, ensuring that when he called, it would answer. It would barely take more than a spark of magic to own it. Generating that spark, though… in his current state it would be a challenge.  
  
The spells carved into the manacles and muzzle pushed back against his own, the unseen barrier stretching like the fabric of a tent but never so weak that he could poke through. He mapped out the edges, tendrils of magic running like fingers along the seams of his confinement, until he found one spot that seemed thinner than the rest. Maybe, just maybe, a concentrated strike at that point could weaken the spells enough for him to slip free.  
  
He gathered his thoughts, preparing, when the song of the Tesseract abruptly went silent.  
  
Loki opened his eyes. Thor had pulled it out of his hand while his focus was elsewhere, and was in the process of handing it over to a group of Einherjar. None of them touched it; instead, they had set up a litter, balancing it between them so they could march off in formation. He resisted the urge to snarl, even though it had never been his plan to claim the Tesseract here, now. Better to wait. There were people to see and scores to settle.  
  
The streets were strangely empty as they walked from the Bifrost to the palace, and Loki wondered if it was for the sake of his son or his own embarrassment Odin had ordered them cleared. He suspected the latter.  
  
When they reached the doors they stopped, and Thor grabbed his shoulder. "I can go with you no further, brother." He squeezed, a clear attempt at reassurance, and the look on his face when he met Loki's eyes was painfully earnest. "I advise you show father remorse for your actions. His punishments are harsh, but fair." He paused before raising his hands and almost gently unclasping the muzzle. "I wish you luck."  
  
Loki's heart twisted into his stomach at the look Thor was giving him. It was so much like Odin, the same face he made when the two of them had gotten into trouble and then had to answer to Bor or worse, Bestla or Farbauti. A mix of sympathy and assurance so familiar it stopped his heart cold.  
  
"Odin's punishments have never been _fair_ ," he mumbled once the gag was out, "at least not to me." He raised his head and refused to meet Thor's eyes as he started to protest.  
  
The Einherjar who closed in around him had more chains. To remind him he was a prisoner, no doubt, as the only binding that mattered were the runes on the shackles fettering his magic, and even those he could get around, given enough time.  
  
When they marched him in to the throne room it was all but empty, a continuation of the privacy that had followed them through the empty streets. Odin sat alone on the throne, and Frigga stood nearby, looking distressed. "Loki," she breathed, and he had never heard her say his name so without rancor. It shouldn't have surprised him; he was, after all, wearing the face of her son.  
  
She drew her expression into something calm and regal, if disappointed, and he couldn't help but think back to the last time he had seen Asgard's queen, screaming and grief-stricken and so, so angry. He'd been the cause of her anger and grief then, if indirectly. History, they said, had a tendency to repeat.  
  
"Hello mother," he said to her, and watched as the word pierced her. How much more, if she knew who was saying it? "Have I made you proud?"  
  
"Please, don't make this worse."  
  
"Define worse," he said, suddenly fighting the urge to laugh. Causing his once-brother and the sister-in-law that had always hated him pain? Further tarnishing the reputation of Odin's son, whom no one had any trouble believing would collect an army of bug people and attack the earth just to spite his dumb oaf of a brother? No, he couldn't make this worse. It just kept getting _better_.  
  
"Enough," Odin said, "I will speak to the prisoner alone."  
  
That surprised him. He meant for Odin to know, but had he realized already? He supposed Odin _should_  have guessed. After all, it may have been centuries since they last saw each other, but once they had known each other better than any other, close enough to slit their palms and speak the oaths that made them brothers. And it had not been so long since Odin had seen his son. Really, he should have expected this.  
  
"I really don't see what all the fuss is about," he said. "After all, I am not the first to attack a peaceful realm unprovoked, seeking conquest. I only followed my brother's example."  
  
"Do you truly not see the difference between what you have done and Thor's excursion to Jotunheim? For which he was rightfully punished, I remind you."  
  
Loki's mouth went dry. So he didn't know, not yet.  
  
"Do you not yet realize the severity of your crimes? Wherever you go there is war, ruin, and death."  
  
Loki couldn't help it. The laugh bubbled up out of his throat, frothy and poisonous. The hypocrisy of that statement floored him, especially after what he'd heard of Odin's exploits from Hela. His precious little girl, and Odin had made her his executioner, his warmonger, his harbinger of death, and used her to beat nine worlds into bloody submission. That Odin could even speak these words of accusation to another with a serious face was appalling.  
  
Especially when all the boy had done, to Odin's knowledge, was unsuccessfully attack Jotunheim with the Bifrost and lay almost-waste to a few square blocks of one Midgardian city.  
  
Odin didn't seem to see the humor in the situation, though, and his face was purplish with rage, so Loki forced himself to regain his composure. "I'm sorry," he gasped, "the irony momentarily overwhelmed me.  Do go on."  
  
"Do not try my patience," Odin said through gritted teeth.  
  
"I wasn't aware you had any." Surely Odin felt it too, this familiarity in the rhythm of their argument. It was almost choking him.  
  
"It is through my patience that you are here! You allied yourself with enemies of Asgard and attacked a realm under our protection all because Loki wanted a throne." The last part was drawn out in a vicious, mocking singsong. It surprised him a little—the boy hadn't seemed particularly the type to want to rule, the short while Loki had known him—but then perhaps that was because he was too busy wanting to escape. Or perhaps Odin didn't know him terribly well. Which seemed increasingly likely, given how long they'd been talking without Odin suspecting anything.  
  
So he shrugged. "It is my birthright." The bloodthirsty callousness and thirst for power, of course. He was supposed to be Odin's son.  
  
"Your birthright was to die! As a child, cast out onto a frozen rock."  
  
Ooh, mean. Odin only said such things when he was really, truly furious. Loki used to use the particularly nasty insults as cues, telling him when he was close to winning an argument. Back when their arguments didn't always end in them both losing, when he could needle his brother for entertainment without the both of them going too far.  
  
Odin wasn't done with the cruel words yet, it seemed. "If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now, to hurt me," he proclaimed. Cold.  
  
Loki pressed forward. He had his trump card, and though he had imagined savoring this a bit longer he found his patience growing thin. "If I am for the axe then for mercy's sake, just swing it. It's not that I don't love our little talks, it's just… I don't love them."  
  
That should do it. The exact words from over a millennia ago, from another trial, another family member chained and at the Allfather's mercy. Surely that, at least, he would recognize.  
  
He didn't react.  
  
The rat-licking, sow-sucking, one-eyed bastard didn't blink. Wink. Whatever. He stood there looking as smug and ignorant as ever.  
  
"Frigga is the only reason you are still alive, and you will never see her again." He leaned in, fixing Loki with a cruel glare, making sure he had his full attention. "You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeons."  
  
He rolled his eyes. "What a surprise," he mumbled viciously, low enough that Odin could pretend not to hear. He knew better than to believe for one second Odin would actually have executed the boy—he hadn't executed Loki, or Hela, after all, and Frigga would never have interceded on his behalf, at least—but he did so enjoy locking away his family to rot in dungeons. At this rate, the Allfather would eventually be out here all alone, with everyone who'd ever meant anything to him trussed up and shut away.  
  
Perhaps he could have orchestrated it, if he didn't like his current plan so much already. It would be almost poetic.  
  
Still, the brotherly part of him that hadn't quite died felt compelled to point out the huge flaw in this plan. "And what of Thor?" he asked. "You will make that witless oaf king while I rot in chains?  
  
He had only met Thor a couple of days ago, but even he knew that wouldn't happen. Thor had all of Odin's passion but none of his unforgiveness. There was no way that he would enforce Odin's sentence and leave his brother locked away once he was king. Loki gave it a couple of years, at most, before he found some excuse to pardon his brother and set him free. More likely a couple of weeks. Especially if a few suggestions here or there helped him along. The boy was so straightforward manipulating him would be child's play.  
  
"Thor will strive to undo the damage you have done," Odin proclaimed, completely missing his point, "he will bring order to the Nine Realms, then yes, I will make him king."  
  
The guards started to pull him away. He pushed back. "Wait," he said, "aren't you going to ask why I did it?" _Brother_ , he almost added. In that moment, Loki would have told him. He would have told him everything.  
  
"I already know why," Odin said. The guards moved again, pulling him towards the door.  
  
"Then your arrogance shall be your undoing, old man," he screamed, and he liked the way the words tasted. Like prophecy. Like a promise.  
  
They dragged him, kicking and screaming, out of the throne room and down, down into the dungeon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the plot should start to pick up after this, and we'll see what our regular Marvel Loki is up to. Stay tuned!


	2. Chapter 2

The plan was _terrifying_.  
  
Also, it was probably insane. Loki could admit that to himself, at least, and did, repeating it as he ghosted silently through the spaceship's junk-strewn interior.  
  
He had been on board since the last time the ship had stopped for supplies, or, rather, he had clung to the ship's outer hull, fingernails digging in to the uneven metal to prove to himself that it was there, it was solid, he was not hurtling alone through the void once again. He still tasted it, felt it on his skin, in his soul. It sent shudders down his spine even after a whisper of magic told him his was the only mind awake and he crept inside the craft, cloaked in invisibility.  
  
The door slid open without a sound. No good. He considered closing it again to open it a little more obnoxiously, but decided if he wasted too much time he would lose his nerve. Even if he didn't, he couldn't risk agitating the small knot of magic that sat in the back of his skull, maddening, buzzing like an insect.  
  
Besides, the figure in the far bed shifted uneasily anyways, tossing in a pattern of restless sleep. He forced his legs to carry him forward, and if they shook, well, the hand on the knife was absolutely steady.  
  
Brown eyes flew open as the blade pressed against the green skin of her throat, but to her credit, the daughter of Thanos didn't so much as flinch. Any warrior of Asgard would be envious of that control.  
  
"I told Thanos I would bring you back," he said, keeping his words pitched soft. He looked down at that impassive face, at the rage that spread across her features and hardened them.  
  
"I will never," she said, not twitching a muscle in the rest of her body, "return to Thanos."  
  
"I'm going to have to disagree," he said, holding the knife absolutely steady. "Do you yield?"  
  
She spared a quick glance at the doorway, looking nervous for the first time. No doubt it had occurred to her to wonder what had befallen her companions.  
  
"They are unhurt," he said, and rather than relax she looked twice as suspicious, "and will remain so should you surrender. I ask again, do you yield?"  
  
"If I do," she said carefully, "what then?"  
  
"I will return you to Than—."  
  
Quicker than Loki could blink, quicker than he would have thought possible for any save perhaps Sif, she twisted, grabbing the wrist that held the knife with one hand and his throat with the other. He had been loose and relaxed, waiting for the attempt, but the sheer force of it caught him off guard. Thanos' daughter. It didn't seem likely that they were actually related, but it wasn't an empty title. He should have expected this, really.  
  
There was a sharp crack as she slammed him skull-first into the wall, and it left his ears ringing, his sight fuzzy, and his legs just a touch wobbly. The knife dropped from nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor. He wondered dizzily what it said about him that he could recognize the feel of the warrior's calluses on her hands from this position.  
  
More importantly, though, the blow jarred loose the magic in his skull, and the spell planted there stuttered and snapped. He let the air leave his lungs in a rush that was half relief and half a result of the impact.  
  
He allowed his eyes to roll back in his head, his knees to give out as he slumped forward into a faked unconsciousness. It wasn't too much of a stretch—based on his external appearance he could have belonged to any number of species, and at least half of them would've been knocked out by the force of the collision. Asgardians—and Jotunn pretenders, it seemed—were a tough lot.  
  
Thanos' renegade daughter wasn't stupid. She never turned her back on him or the knife, not even when she went to collect a pair of metal cuffs and returned to secure his hands. The cool metal of the restraints clawed uncomfortably against his mind, tearing at scars where flesh had long since perfectly healed, but he allowed it. No doubt if he were truly as fragile as he pretended the thin, magicless metal could have held him.  
  
She retrieved the knife from where it had fallen by the bed and slipped it easily into the waistband of the loose outfit she had been sleeping in, but he had no doubt it could reappear just as quickly if he were to make a threatening move.  
  
Thus secured, she grabbed one of his heels and started dragging him. It took a great effort of will to force himself to remain limp, to let his head drag along the uneven metal flooring without flinching.  
  
When she seemed sufficiently distracted he cast a quick illusion to make it seem as though his eyes remained closed, then opened them just enough to take in his surroundings.  
  
"Hey everyone," she shouted as she dragged him through the doorway into the main part of the ship. "We got a stowaway."  
  
Shuffling broke out in several directions, and after a moment an exhausted-looking human stumbled onto the deck, rumpled and half-awake. "Seriously?" He ran a hand through hair that stuck up at odd angles, attempting to smooth it down, then gave up. "Why would anyone stow away on our ship? I mean it's a great ship, but..."  
  
"Shall I remove his spine?" A deep voice rumbled, and the utter lack of emotion in the offer made him repress a shiver.  
  
"No!" The human looked alarmed, and he held out his arms, placating. "No one is getting their spine removed. At least not until we figure out what's going on."  
  
"Then what am I up for? It's the middle of the night! Can't this wait until morning?" That was...a...raccoon? Loki didn't think he remembered reading that the Midgardian creatures were intelligent enough to possess speech, but this one clearly did.  
  
"I am Groot,' said a very small tree.  
  
"Yes, I know there are no real day-night cycles on a spaceship. But I was sleeping, which makes it nighttime, which makes it not the time for whatever-it-is to be sneaking around our ship!"  
  
"What I think we need to know is why he's here in the first place," the human insisted.  
  
"It will not matter if I crush his skull," the owner of the deep voice, who turned out to be a muscle-bound red-and-grey giant, offered hopefully.  
  
"Now that's just messy," the raccoon said, sounding disgusted.  
  
"I am Groot," the tree added.  
  
They all looked to Gamora.  
  
"Thanos sent him," she said, "after me."  
  
The very air on the ship went flat and hostile. Loki almost flinched when the giant took a threatening step forward.  
  
"If he is working for Thanos, we should kill him," he said simply.  
  
"Whoa there, rein it in." The Midgardian again. "No one's killing anyone on my ship."  
  
"Actually, I'm with Drax on this one," the raccoon said. "If this guy's working for Thanos we should definitely kill him."  
  
"Something's wrong," Gamora said. She hadn't relaxed for a second since she opened her eyes, and Loki didn't miss her nervous glances at the darker corners of the ship. "He went down too easy. Something else is going on."  
  
"Well, you are pretty badass," the Midgardian said, but she only frowned harder.  
  
"Search the ship," she said after a pause. "We're missing something."  
  
Not good. He needed their attention centered, focused, for this to work. Slowly, he opened his eyes, expanding the glamor and casting an entire double in his place. At the same time, he drew invisibility around himself, dividing his attention between the two spells to create a seamless transition he'd practiced years to achieve, though he usually preferred to have as few eyes on him as possible during the switch.  
  
It worked, though, and soon they were all watching his illusion intently while he edged back as quietly as possible.  
  
"Hello," the Loki on the floor said, and gave a weak little half-wave.  
  
The raccoon grabbed a weapon nearly as large as himself off a nearby workbench and held it inches from the double's skull. It flinched back with a fairly convincing look of helpless terror.  
  
"Dude," the Midgardian said in what was probably intended as an intimidating tone. "What are you doing on my ship?"  
  
"I came only for the daughter of Thanos," it answered almost reflexively, the conversation relegated to the back of his mind as he crept slowly toward the ship's escape pod.  
  
"Came to do what?"  
  
"The Titan wishes her to return to her place at his side." He swore internally. The thing had a code, which he did not have time for. Silent fingertips pressed into the control pad and a tendril of magic reached out, seeking the inner workings of the device. It wasn't anything from the Nine Realms, and the shape of it was unfamiliar to him. This would take some fiddling.  
  
"How would you do that?" Gamora asked the question calmly, as though she wasn't standing over him with a knife in her waistband, tensed for a fight. "You stowed away on this ship, so I'm assuming you don't have one of your own. You wouldn't make it past the bridge without my friends stopping you. You don't even have a way to keep me contained. Did you think this plan through at all?"  
  
The double pushed itself to a half-sitting position and shrugged. "I didn't expect you to be so strong," it rasped. Something had clicked inaudibly into place in the control panel, and he thought it was a good sign. A little more fiddling and he should be in.  
  
Her eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "You're lying."  
  
"I am Groot."  
  
That particular interjection didn't seem terribly relevant to the conversation, but it didn't concern Loki until he realized, looking through the double's eyes, that everyone was following the pointed twiggy finger of the baby tree and looking at him.  
  
The real, invisible him, not the illusion.  
  
Illusory him lunged, going straight for the knife in Gamora's waistband. She threw up her hands to block and the double passed right through, disappearing in a flash of light, but it had succeeded in buying him a few seconds' distraction. With a hiss and a click the door unlatched as the last piece fell into place, and he started to yank it open only to have the breath knocked out of him as the giant slammed into his back.  
  
His illusion of invisibility broke, and within seconds Gamora's knife (well, his knife that she'd taken) was at his throat again.  
  
He reached for his magic, and a wave of force swept them both back and away from him, bowling them into their teammates. He went to turn back to the escape hatch but several blasters were already trained on his person, and he didn't know enough about how they worked to know whether they'd be effective against an Asgardian-Jotunn.   
  
He raised his hand, the green-gold glow of his magic surging and pooling in his palm, ready to attack or throw up a shield.  
  
They stood, staring at one another and breathing heavily, no one willing to move first.  
  
"Stand down," the Midgardian shouted after a long half-second, hefting the blaster-weapon demonstratively.  
  
"I think not," Loki said, and the magic gathered in his palm swirled and eddied.  
  
"We've got four blasters on you," the raccoon said, his lips curled up into a sneer.  
  
"I could tear this ship apart with a thought." He lifted his chin, staring them down as though he were wearing his full armor and helmet, still a prince of Asgard even if he wasn't, not really.  
  
The little beast snorted. "That would be real dumb, since you're on this ship too."  
  
"I was the second most powerful sorcerer on Asgard," he said, pulling a little more magic to the surface to mask his terror at the thought of being flung back out into the void of space. "I think I would manage."  
  
"Okay, then let's talk." That was Gamora. It was quickly becoming evident that she was the most sensible member of this group as well as the most deadly.  
  
With a deliberately slow motion she lowered the gun, relaxing her posture into something less ready for a fight. A mostly meaningless gesture, given the three other guns still trained on him.  
  
"I am leaving," he announced, edging back almost imperceptibly slowly. "Do not stand in my way and I will have no reason to harm you."  
  
"Can't let you do that." The Midgardian shook his head. "The last thing we need is you running back and reporting our whereabouts to Thanos."  
  
"I have no intention to—" he cut himself off. Again, this was time he didn't have. "You can't stop me."  
  
"Watch me."  
  
Gamora put a hand on the man's shoulder, a familiar gesture, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders, but they both kept their eyes on Loki. "You said you were from Asgard," she said quietly.  
  
He set his jaw and said nothing.  
  
"If you're Asgardian you're stronger than me, even with my implants. Your stance tells me you're trained, and you can clearly use magic."  
  
"All excellent reasons for you to allow me to leave," he said, taking another step back. The giant's mad tackle had pressed the door closed again and the hand not upraised found the lock once more. It had sealed once again, and he diverted half of his attention to picking it open.  
  
"If that's the case why attack me with a tiny dagger?"  
  
He froze. "I assure you, I am more than capable of—"  
  
"That's just it. You're clearly capable of a more effective attack. I'm not doubting your abilities, I'm doubting your intentions."  
  
"Beg pardon?" He almost had the lock, and he thought with the proper distraction he could throw the door open and get it closed between them before they could fire.  
  
There was a fizzle and a shower of sparks, and he jerked his hand back from the mechanical lock. A thin trickle of steam drifted from the mechanism, and when he sent a quick diagnostic pulse of magic through the circuit it was busted and unusable.  
  
The raccoon pulled back from a junction somewhere further down the line, clutching a tool, and Loki gritted his teeth. He'd been too focused to the main threats, and now—he could break down the door with brute force, but a ship with a broken hull would do him little good.  
  
"I think," Gamora said, taking another step forward, "that you had no intention of bringing me back to Thanos. Which leaves the question of why you're here at all. Why come if you're going to fail?"  
  
Several lies popped into his head, but he dismissed them almost immediately. Thanos' daughter did not seem one to be easily fooled, and with his escape closed off from him he had precious few options.  
  
"Thanos did send me," he said carefully, watching for the merest hint of movement on a trigger. "He has the Mind Stone."  
  
That captured everyone's attention. Gamora looked horrified, and the rest some combination of afraid and angry. He exhaled deliberately. So he wouldn't have to explain the Infinity Stones. That was some small relief.  
  
"I had very little freedom of movement outside my given objective," he continued when no one spoke, "but its influence weakens with distance, and I correctly deduced that it could be dislodged by a blow to the head."  
  
"So you sneak on our ship, have Gamora hit you in the noggin, then steal our pod and run off?" The Midgardian lowered his weapon now, leaving only one gun trained on him. He started mentally estimating his chances of success if he rushed the violent giant.  
  
"Essentially." He grimaced.  
  
"That is a terrible plan," the giant offered. His face remained impassive.  
  
"Yes, well, I am rather in a hurry," he snapped back.  
  
They traded glanced among themselves. "Gamora, do you believe him?"  
  
She looked thoughtful for a brief moment, then gave a sharp nod. "It fits. If Thanos has the Mind Stone, he won't hesitate to use it." She paused. "And now that I think about it, he stopped fighting me when I slammed his head into the wall."  
  
"Alright, then that's good enough for me," the Midgardian said, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I'll make you a deal. You don't blow up the ship or steal anything, and we'll take you to the nearest port."  
  
Loki must have looked uncertain, because he continued. "Hey, you're the one who said you're in a hurry. I guarantee agreeing will be faster than trying to fight us all."  
  
Loki took a deep breath, then let his hands fall. "Very well. You have my word that, should you take me to port and allow me to leave unrestrained, I shall harm neither you nor your ship."  
  
The man grinned. "All right. Glad we could reach an arrangement."  He placed one hand in the air, holding it out until Loki recognized the gesture as a Midgardian greeting and grasped it. "I'm Peter Quill, but you can call me Starlord."  
  
"Perhaps I can, but I find it unlikely that I will. Quill."  
  
Maybe, probably, talking back was a foolish move, but the endlessly suspicious part of him needed to know how they would react, what sort of a people these were.  
  
The room erupted in laughter. Even Quill, who clearly looked a bit put-out, managed a faintly amused smile. "Fine. But if you've got any cool nicknames of your own, they're off the table now. Mr..."  
  
"Loki." He paused a half-second before saying "Odinson"; he wasn't sure if that was a lie now, and if it was, if it was one he wished to tell. "Laufeyson" seemed wrong for a number of reasons, and the prospect of making up something suitable seemed exhausting just now. "Just Loki."


	3. Chapter 3

Despite what Odin had threatened, Frigga came to visit him.  
  
Of course she did. She thought she was visiting her _son_ , and Norns knew how much she loved her sons. And now Loki had taken not one, but two from her. She would never forgive him for Baldr, and he'd a feeling she would feel the same about what he'd done to his own namesake, yet here she was sneaking him creature comforts and keeping him company. It should have been hilarious.  
  
Instead, it left a sick feeling in his gut that he couldn't quite banish.  
  
"Allmother," he said as she entered, because his anger was starting to cool, and continuing to call her mother would be too cruel when the truth finally came out. Frigga hated him, but bitter as he was, willing as he was to taunt her and raise her ire, he couldn't quite hate her in return. How could a good parent be anything but angry when someone took their children from them?  
  
She noticed, of course, and he could tell she thought it was childish pique that prompted the formal address. She only raised an eyebrow, though, and didn't comment.  
  
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he bowed slightly, mocking.  
  
"My son," she said gently, warmth even in the rebuke. So different from the woman who had screamed her rage at him when last he saw her, called him murderer and nithing and monster. He was half-tempted to show her his true face, then and there, to see the irritating gentleness spill from her features. To see her hate him as she ought.  
  
Instead, he said quietly, "I am not that."  
  
She kept her tone light, but he could sense the hurt beneath it. "Am I not your mother?"  
  
"No, you are not. Surely the Queen of Asgard would not have a monster for a son."  
  
The flash of hurt across her face was more satisfying than he expected. Yes, he knew how it felt when someone called your child a monster. Knew how it felt when they believed it.  
  
"I know the boy I raised." She smiled again, features set in forced calm. "The babe I sang to sleep. The young man I taught to read, who then ran out of books and had to be turned loose in the palace library. Who begged me to tell him one last story before bed. He is no monster."  
  
_Do you? Do you know him so well you could tell him from your most hated enemy, were he standing right in front of you?_    
  
"I killed him," he said instead, and it was almost the truth. "He fell into the void and I am the monster that crawled out." He spread his arms. "What kind words have you, then, for the beast who killed your son?" _Sons._  
  
"Loki!" She took a deep breath. "Your father and I—"  
  
"Odin is not my father!" He screamed with a vehemence that surprised even him.  
  
"He loves you."  
  
"The Allfather loves nothing that is not useful to him.  I ceased to be that long ago. I realized that when he cast me into the void and left me there."  
  
"He did no such thing. He mourned when you fell, Loki. He grieved." Her voice was soft, pleading.  
  
"He grieved for his son," Loki said. "We have already established I am not that."  
  
"I believe we disagreed on that point, my son." She turned to go. "I think it best we not continue this conversation until tempers have cooled. Farewell for now, Loki. I shall visit when I can."  
  
"Tell my brother," he said before she disappeared, "that I shall not forget his betrayal."  
  
Her lips quirked upwards in a sad smile. "So you reject me as your mother and Odin as your father, but Thor you still accept?"  
  
"You're right." He smirked. "Thor is not my brother."  
  
The smile faded but she said nothing further.  
  
When she had gone, he set about testing the edges of the magical field that contained him. They held when he pressed gently against them, flexing the spells with a gentle pressure. The wards did two things: first, they did not allow anything, physical or otherwise, to pass the boundaries of his cell, and second, they pressed against his magic, keeping nearly all of it trapped within him and making it difficult to use anything more than the simplest of spells.  
  
It would have trapped nearly any magic user, rendered them powerless and helpless. Likely it would have done so to the Allfather's errant son, though from what he'd sensed of the boy's magic he doubted it could've held him indefinitely.  
  
But there was a reason the Allfather had not held him down here, had instead carved out a prison of stone and magic suspended in the depths of the void, and it had to do with more than Odin's desire to hide away his mistakes and forget them. Loki was slippery, and despite being a giant in name he had often fought those larger and stronger than himself. He knew how to turn away an attack, to slip underneath it, to turn a stronger attacker's power around and use it.  
  
He knew how to do the same thing with his magic, and with magics stronger than his own. No one could break these wards by pushing up against them. Well, perhaps Thanos and those of his caliber, but it's not like anyone could put the Mad Titan in the cell to begin with. But Loki didn't have to. He could almost feel the place where his magic could slip out sideways, pulling the crushing force of the wards to him and sliding past like a droplet of oil squeezed between finger and thumb. He set it up, arranging the magic within him so he could unravel his captivity with a tug on the last loose thread, and he waited.  


* * *

  
  
As it turned out, 'the nearest port' was nearly two days away, and in the opposite of the direction Loki wanted to be traveling.  
  
When Quill told him he did a very poor job of holding back a growl, and only his promise to do no harm kept him from grabbing the mortal and shaking him.  
  
"Whoa," Quill said, "relax. Why the rush?"  
  
"In a hurry to get back to Thanos?" The little raccoon had made it no secret that, even though he seemed willing to defer to his leader's judgement, he still didn't trust Loki's explanation.  
  
Loki understood what it meant to be slow to trust, but the insinuations that he was in league with his greatest enemy were getting old.  
  
"Yes, actually," he said, and watched everyone freeze in confusion, including Rocket. "In a manner of speaking. I intend to seek revenge upon him for forcing me into his service."  
  
Quill's eyebrows shot up. "Are you serious?"  
  
"Word of advice," Gamora put in, "don't. If you really aren't going back to him, the smart thing to do would be to stay the hell out of his way and hope you aren't important enough for him to send someone after you."  
  
"I am not a fool," he snapped, and pretty much everyone raised an eyebrow at that. "I have no intention of challenging Thanos directly, nor any delusions about how precisely such an encounter would go."  
  
"So what, then?" the raccoon asked him. "You gonna send him an angry letter? Key his spaceship while it's parked in the garage?"  
  
Wisdom and suspicion warred within him. He didn't know these people, not really. But they seemed to hate Thanos, and that was a sentiment he could easily relate to.  
  
The Loki from before the fall would never have considered being truthful. He would have kept his plans to himself, guarding them jealously and assuming the worst of anyone he encountered.  
  
Just look where _that_  had gotten him.  
  
"I have designs to foil one of his plans. If successful, it could keep at least two of the Infinity Stones from his possession."  
  
He sucked in a deep breath, heard those around him do the same. Those who knew of the Infinity Stones would know how important, how critical it was that they be kept out of Thanos' hands.  
  
"So you see," he said, "it is of utmost importance that I reach my destination swiftly. Are you entirely certain there are no closer ports?"  
  
"Hold the phone," Quill said, and held up one finger. "I think we need to have a team discussion. Excuse us."  
  
Quill drew away, and Drax, Gamora, and Rocket followed. They bent into a huddle and began whispering loudly enough that, with his sharp hearing, he could easily have listened in had he wanted to.  
  
Instead, he looked at the small tree-person, who had been staring at him with overlarge eyes while they debated. The tree-child held out a hand, and he felt something brush against his magic, a small tendril like a curious vine.  
  
He laid a hand on the thing's forehead and experimentally channeled a bit of magical energy down through his palm. The plant absorbed it greedily, swelling and unfolding a bit under his hand. By the time he pulled away it had grown several inches taller and was staring at him more intently than before.  
  
"I am Groot," it said, in a voice fractionally deeper than it had been earlier.  
  
"You're welcome, little one," he said softly.  
  
The huddle had broken, and Quill, ever the spokesman, approached him. "We want to help," he announced, squaring his shoulders.  
  
Loki blinked. "Excuse me?"  
  
"You said Thanos is after these Infinity Stones," Gamora said. "If he gets them, that's not just your problem. We have a responsibility to keep them out of his hands."  
  
"I, too, want revenge on Thanos," Drax announced. He nodded, as though that proclamation decided the thing.  
  
Loki paused, a denial on his tongue. They… weren't wrong. And though his instincts when solving a difficult problem often had him strike out on his own, the truth in this case was that he could likely use every bit of help he could get, especially help with access to transportation.  Besides, if he thought of it as gathering allies rather than accepting aid…  
  
He didn't have a good reason to refuse.  
  
"Very well," he said. "I'll provide you the coordinates."  
  
Quill nodded. "An explanation would be good too."  
  
Loki paused, looked at the assorted curious faces, and allowed himself a small smile. "We'd best have a seat, then. This promises to be a lengthy tale."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know I just posted an update yesterday, but that one took longer than I wanted, and this chapter is pretty short, and overall I'm just not very patient. Hope you enjoy!

"So this guy, your crazy uncle, is going to attack Earth?" Loki found it ironic that once Quill had convinced the others to trust him, or at least very badly pretend to, he took to questioning everything he had to say.   
  
"He likely already has. The attack may even already be finished and over with by now, if it was particularly quick." Loki drummed his fingers on a metal workbench in a steady rhythm that matched that of the music playing softly in the background. The faint...metallic?… nature of the music, plus the fact that Quill had put it on, made him suspect it was Midgardian in origin.   
  
"Then why aren't we headed over there right this instant?"   
  
"Two reasons." Loki held up one finger. "By the time we arrived, it would be too late to do any good." A second finger joined the first. "I strongly suspect that, even should we arrive on time, the Earth would be better off without us."   
  
"Hey," Quill said, "we may not be the toughest guys in the galaxy—"   
  
"I am definitely one of the toughest guys in the galaxy," Drax mumbled, and Gamora gave Quill a hard look.   
  
"—or maybe that's just me," he said, raising his hands in a motion of surrender, "but either way I'm sure we could help. Some. At least a little."   
  
"My uncle intends for the invasion to fail," Loki said. "But he intends for it to fail believably. In order to accomplish that, he will scale his attack to whatever resistance he finds. Should we add our talents to the defense capabilities of the Earth, he shall increase the strength of his forces as well to counterbalance us. No doubt this would increase casualties and destruction on the planet itself."   
  
"So the bigger the two armies, the more of Earth gets squashed between them."   
  
"Essentially, yes."   
  
He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Okay. That makes sense, I guess." He grimaced. "I don't like it, but it makes sense."   
  
"Thank you."   
  
"I can't help but notice you not making with the helpful suggestions to defeat him, though," Peter added.   
  
"I was getting there. Setting the stage, so to speak." He tried to curb his irritation, but it prickled at him despite his efforts.   
  
"Yeah, well lights, camera, action, get to the point already." Rocket leapt up onto the bench with an almost disturbing blend of an animal's crouch and the two-legged mannerisms he typically adopted and inserted himself casually into Loki's personal space.   
  
"Once his failed Earth invasion is complete, he plans to bring the Tesseract—the first of the Infinity Stones I mentioned—to Asgard. He will bring the Mind Stone as well, if he is able, or return for it later. I am hoping to arrive there before he does and give warning of his approach and intentions. If I am too late for that I shall have to stop him."   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
Loki gave the tree a look, but Rocket translated without hesitating. "We. He says we will stop him."   
  
"Very well," he corrected, " _we_  will have to stop him." It felt odd on his tongue, though it shouldn't. It wasn't so long ago he'd been a part of a team, him and Thor and Thor's friends.   
  
"How?" For whatever reason, the questions didn't seem near as annoying when it was Gamora asking. Probably because she sounded curious rather than skeptical.   
  
"I mean yeah, I've heard of these guys. They're basically Space Vikings, right? Ultimate warrior culture and all that? They should be able to handle one dude. And if they can't, what are we gonna do?"   
  
There were so many things in that uninformed string of questions that Loki wanted to argue with, but he'd never enjoyed throwing himself at brick walls. Instead, he asked, "what do you know of the living dead?"   
  
"What, like zombies?" Quill was making an 'I'm perplexed' face that reminded him of Thor. Rocket rolled his eyes, but Gamora looked spooked, and Drax was giving him an almost hungry look that convinced him he had better clarify.   
  
"If a zombie is the empty shell of something once living that has been twisted by dark magic into a monstrous form, then yes, exactly."   
  
"Actually, that's pretty close." He stuck his arms out rigid in front of him, rolled his eyes back in his head and lurched a step forward. "Braaaiins."   
  
Loki glanced up and then scooted sideways. "Whatever is he doing? Need we stop and search out a healer of the mind?"   
  
Quill abruptly reverted back to normal. Or what seemed to be normal for him, at least. "Dude, not cool. It's my zombie impression. You know, shambling corpse, eats brains?"   
  
"That did not even resemble a draugr. Why would anyone be frightened of something so slow and uncoordinated? You could carve it to pieces before it had a hope of reaching you. And they are sustained by magic, and thus have no need to eat anything, brains or otherwise. Though if that were the cornerstone of their diet," he added, "you should be quite safe."   
  
He leaned over to Gamora. "He's really mean," he whispered loudly, drawing the word out and making a face. Being a sensible creature, she ignored him.   
  
"So I take it these are fast and skilled?" she asked instead.   
  
"Moderately, at least usually. However, a woman named Hela whom I once believed to be mostly mythical has apparently managed to conquer Helheim and recruit from there an undead army. My uncle intends to use the Tesseract to free her once he reaches Asgard. I imagine her warriors will be more skilled than is typical for the undead."   
  
"She'll help your uncle?"   
  
"He's her father. And until now the King of Asgard has been imprisoning her. So yes, I rather think when he shows up and frees her, Hela and her army will be more than happy to help him fight her captors."   
  
"You know, that doesn't really answer my question," Quill put in. "So your weird cousin has an undead army. What are we gonna do to stop her that Asgard can't already?"   
  
Everyone was looking at him, and the scrutiny bothered him more than it usually would. An audience was more pleasant when you already knew exactly what to say.  "I'm...working on that part," he said carefully.   
  
"So you were lying about having a plan?"   
  
"No," he said defensively. "I am merely continuing to work out the details. It is a journey of at least a week before we reach Asgard. By the time we arrive the plan will be fully completed." He hesitated again. "Perhaps you could offer some—"   
  
"Tomorrow," Rocket cut him off. "Right now," he jumped down from the bench he had been perched on, "I'm going back to bed. Anyone who wakes me in less than six hours had better offer pancakes or be prepared to lose a limb."   
  
The other members of the team offered mumbled agreement. Now that he considered it, beneath the petering adrenaline still churning cold in his gut, his entire body burned with ragged exhaustion.   
  
"Extra room's in there," Quill pointed. "Ditto on the pancakes thing. Although I add an additional exception for French Toast."   
  
"Oh yeah, that too," Rocket said before slamming a door closed.   
  
Loki stumbled in the direction of the spare room. Now that the adrenaline was no longer holding him together, his legs nearly gave out under him when he finally reached the bed.   
  
Not even the voice in the back of his head telling him he wasn't safe yet, not truly, kept him from falling right into a sleep as dark and deep and empty as the void.   


* * *

  
  
Time in his cell dragged on, bright and empty and meaningless.   
  
By now Loki had worked out all the ins and outs of the spells that kept him bound, and he was confident he could throw them off at any time. Reasonably confident, even, that he could do so without attracting the Allfather's notice, be escaped and gone and _free_  before any were the wiser.   
  
Now was not the time, though, and the waiting was making him miserable.   
  
The Midgardians had a saying: "misery loves company", and he fancied it to be true. If he was to be this uncomfortable for the duration of his stay, surely there was a way to make his brother equally unhappy.   
  
He knew just the weapon to use against him.   
  
The next time Frigga came to visit him (and it did not take too long, not that he thought it would) found him sitting in the corner, knees pulled to his chest, weeping softly.   
  
"My son?" she asked cautiously, and he startled and pulled himself together as though he hadn't heard her coming, as though his pathetic state wasn't entirely for her benefit.   
  
"What do you want?" and oh, he was proud of that one. The tone was a masterpiece, cold and forced with just enough of a tremor at the end to leave a glimpse through the mask to the deeper mask underneath. He had to work to hold back a self-satisfied smirk that would absolutely ruin the effect.   
  
"Can a mother not simply want—"   
  
"I am not your son!" The desperation in that statement was a work of art. Perhaps he should have been an actor, conquered Midgard by winning their fame and adulation. Perhaps he still would. "Odin made that abundantly clear to me."   
  
"He did not mean—"   
  
"Do you know what he said?" He punctuated the cold words with a half-sob, as though he could not bear to think on it. "He told me he wished he never taken me from the snows of Jotunheim. That he would have been wiser to leave me to die as an infant than to have taken such a poisonous creature into his home. That my only birthright is abandonment and death. So no, I am not his son, or yours either."   
  
Now for the killing blow. He looked down at the floor, clenched his hands into tight fists, and spoke so softly she would have to strain to hear. "Perhaps he was right," he said. "It would have been better for him to have crushed my skull and saved us all the misery."   
  
"Oh, honey, no," she said, shock and compassion and anger flaring in those bright eyes. "Your father has made many mistakes, but that was never one of them. He should never have said such a thing." Her expression turned dark. "We shall have words later, I assure you."   
  
Ha. That was too easy. He hid a smile behind his hand before summoning some tears and looking up.   
  
"You must never believe such a thing," she said, close to tears herself. "My sweet, clever boy. I am not proud of what you have done lately, but not for one second did I regret taking you into our home or my heart."   
  
"How can you say such a thing?" he asked, pulling into himself even tighter, limbs packed tight. Even more pathetic. He probably looked like a dying spider. "I'm a _monster_."   
  
"No." She stretched out a hand as though she could reach straight through the walls of his confinement and offer some maternal comfort, then drew it back in evident frustration. "Not that. Never that."   
  
"Leave me," he said in a small, weak voice, the voice of a hurt little boy.   
  
The tears fell then, running soft and silvery down her cheeks as she rose. When she spoke, though, her voice held fire and determination. "I will speak to my husband," she said, and he did not envy Odin.   
  
After she left, he uncurled himself and laughed until his ribs ached. Yes, Odin would be at least as miserable as he was now. His brother would be better off down here with him than facing that woman's rage.   
  
Given the choice, he might actually prefer it.   
  
He started laughing anew. 


	5. Chapter 5

Loki awoke to a pair of too-large eyes inches from his own. Pain blossomed in the back of his head, and he realized that his startled flailing had slammed it against the wall. Just in time, he managed to suppress what would no doubt have been an unmanly shriek.  
  
"I am Groot," said the owner of the eyes, and the tree-child crawled onto his chest and stared down at him.  
  
He swallowed before picking it up and setting it off to the side, then pushed himself up to a sitting position so he could get a better look at the plant creature. Tiny green leaves had sprouted across its shoulders since he'd seen it last, and they trailed off of it in places like a tattered cape. It stared hopefully at him, following his cautious movements intently.    
  
"What do you want?" he asked it.  
  
It shifted to look at him more directly. "I am Groot."  
  
"Ah." From the intent look it was giving him, it wanted something, and he had a guess. He put a hand atop its head, much as he had done the night before. Its eyes slipped closed and its upturned face held a peaceful expression, much like a cat reclining on a sunlit rug.  
  
He gathered up the internal pool of his seidr and fed some of it down their connection, passing the energy along while being careful not to give enough to leave himself weakened. When he concentrated he could gather up tendrils of the ambient energy and feed that down the connection as well, feeling the plant's body hungrily absorb every scrap it was given.  
  
After several minutes of this he pulled back, glancing down at the creature, which really did seem a bit larger to him now. A spark of curiosity made him contemplate feeding it his entire store, just to see what would happen, but approaching footsteps prevented the experiment.  
  
"There you are," Rocket said to the little Groot. "What are you doing in here?"  
  
"I am Groot." Groot pointed at him, and he felt a need to raise his hands in a disclaimer of fault.  
  
Rocket snorted. "Relax, stowaway, he just said he was here to check on you. You're allowed out of your room, you know. Not like you're grounded or anything."  
  
"Good to know," Loki said as he pushed to his feet.  
  
"Yeah-huh," Rocket said. "Though I would avoid doing anything to upset Drax if you're particularly attached to your spleen."  
  
Loki nodded. "Sounds reasonable."  
  
"Yeah, well, we'd rather you stayed alive long enough to finish your half-assed plan," Rocket grumbled.  
  
"Noted," he said pleasantly.  
  
Rocket left, dragging baby Groot behind him.  
  
Loki considered following them out, but the gravitational pull of the bed was too great, and for the first time in what felt like ages his body was nearly healed enough not to hurt. Before he could make a real decision he drifted back into a dreamless sleep.  
  
The next time he woke it was to an awful, terrible, discordant noise. An alarm. It had to be. Something was going wrong, and this was exactly what he did _not_  need right now.  
  
He stumbled out of the room, too newly-awoken to remember to cast an illusion to hide his sleep-wrinkled clothes and tousled hair. The other occupants of the ship were in the common area, and they did not look nearly as concerned as they should about the blaring alarm.  
  
"What's wrong?" he said as they looked up at him, startled.  
  
"You tell me," Quill said.  
  
"The alarm..." He trailed off. Closer, he could hear the... vocalization, he wouldn't quite call it singing, within the noise.  
  
Quill was frowning now. "It's good music."  
  
"It is chaos." He paused. "No, that is too generous. I once was worshipped as the god of chaos and even I cannot abide it."  
  
Quill snorted. "Worshipped where? What sort of backwards planet would mistake you for a god?"  
  
The irony of that amused the part of him that once had been known as trickster, and under other circumstances, he might have laughed.  
  
"You're correct, they were a petty, backwards little species," he said, smirking internally. Peter's suspicious glare told him he had picked up on at least the spirit of the insult.  
  
"Any idea yet on how to fight an undead army?" Gamora playing peacekeeper, changing the subject.  
  
He shook his head. "I will need to do some research."  
  
"Sure. The ship's main terminal is over there." He pointed to a screen set in a metal console, then looked at Loki expectantly.  
  
He maintained eye contact, reached into a pocket storage dimension and pulled out an ancient leather-bound book.  
  
A reedy sound bounced off the walls, and it took him a second to localize it to the laughing raccoon near his feet. "Seriously?" Rocket gasped. "You guys still use paper books? I thought Asgard was supposed to be an advanced civilization?"  
  
"It isn't safe to store magical information in a technological medium." He scanned the edges of the room, searching out a good reading spot. "It has a tendency to turn… unpleasantly sentient."  
  
"What, no." Rocket twisted around to look up at him. "You're messing with me. He's messing with me."  
  
Loki affected a faint smile and shrugged. No clever reading nooks stood out to him, so he chose a wall and slumped against it, conjuring a few strategically placed cushions to make it more comfortable. Less than ideal, but it would have to suffice for now.  
  
"No, I want you to explain." The book he had already started reading was rudely snatched from his hands, but when he looked up the fire that burned in the little creature's eyes was curiosity, not malice, and well, that was something he could relate to.  
  
He still cast an illusion to make the book look like a snake and snatched it from the air when Rocket flung it away in a panic, though, because manners were important.  
  
"Simple," he said, flipping back to his place while everyone stared bug-eyed at the book as though it could try again to bite them at any second. "Magic can get a bit... leaky, and it tends to alter its containers slowly over time. That is one of the main reasons such strong prohibitions against trying to harness dark energy exist. In that case, the caster acts as the container, and the changes that occur are rarely pleasant."  
  
He turned a page, pulling back his fingers as a spark of energy snapped at him. "Other information on Asgard, including much of our history, is stored in archives of the type you would be familiar with. Even with those, however, a paper copy is stored in the palace library, mainly to guard against loss through compatibility issues. One scholar did try to upload some of the more useful magic texts to such an archive, thinking to make the information more easily accessible."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Loki grinned as he turned another page. "It ate him."  
  
Rocket scoffed. "What ate him? The computer? That's stupid, it doesn't even have a mouth."  
  
Loki shrugged. "I am unaware of the details. What I do know is that since that time, parchment or paper have remained the standards for magical texts, as one can usually subdue a book if it develops a mind of its own."  
  
"You're lying," Rocket said.  
  
"Perhaps," he agreed. "Or perhaps not."  
  
Rocket shook his head, but wandered off and left him in peace.  
  
It was doubtless several hours and a good quarter of his personal library later when something knocked against his personal reading nest, startling him into an awkward half-seated fighting stance with his current book upraised like a shield.  
  
Gamora grinned down at him, amusement written on her features, and he relaxed into an annoyed slouch. "What do you want?" He squinted up at her peevishly.  
  
"You said you're from Asgard," she said, a little too casually.  
  
"Because I am." He spread his arms, daring her to challenge the statement.  
  
"Warrior class?"  
  
"No." He looked pointedly back down at the book, waving her away with a dismissive gesture that would have gotten rid of Sif or one of the warriors.  
  
She wasn't so easy to dissuade, though. She snorted, the sound filled with disbelief. "I'm not blind. You move like someone who's had extensive training, probably since childhood."  
  
He inclined his head. "Nobility. My brother and I underwent the same training as the soldiers." And then some.  
  
"Feel like a spar?"  
  
That… wasn't what he expected. He blinked up at her.  "Excuse me?"  
  
"You've been reading for almost a full day," she said, and suddenly the faint headache pulsing behind his eyes made more sense. "I figured you might want a chance to stretch your limbs. Besides," she added, "I could use a challenge, and I get the feeling you probably have a different style than Drax. No one else on the ship really fights."  
  
"Hey," Quill said from somewhere behind her. She ignored him and extended a hand.  
  
Loki accepted it and pulled himself to his feet. "Very well. What are the rules?"  
  
"We don't kill each other." She grinned, and the feral edge to her smile reminded him of Sif.  
  
"I shall refrain from using magic," he offered, "in the interest of fairness."  
  
"Sure," she said. "You might regret that."  
  
"Perhaps." He felt his own answering smile, nearly as sharp as hers. "Shall we use weapons or fight unarmed?"  
  
"Unarmed for now." She pulled several knives from her clothing and set them aside to demonstrate.  
  
He spread his hands. "Shall we?"  
  
They cleared a small but serviceable area in the middle of the room, and took up their positions. The others had gathered around them to watch, expressions ranging from Drax's unbridled glee to Quill's open trepidation.  
  
He fell back into a fighting stance and waited for her to make the first move.  
  
He didn't have to wait long. Within seconds she was rushing forward, feigning a punch only to pivot and snap out a kick, heel aimed for the center of his sternum. He sidestepped, avoiding the kick only to catch a backfist to the face. It stung; Thor would have hit him harder, but she was stronger than she looked.  
  
He moved back with the blow and fell back into his fighting stance, and her eyes, when they met his, were smug. "Too hard?" She asked, continuing to circle.  
  
"Not a chance."  
  
She rushed in again, this time with a knee aimed for the tender part of his abdomen. He went to hook it but this time when she snapped out a punch he was ready, redirecting the strike and leaving the side of her face open for a vicious hook. She staggered back a step, working her jaw.  
  
"Too hard?" he asked, grinning. She didn't bother to answer before charging in for a tackle.  
  
They went back and forth, flurried attacks interspersed with careful footwork, fast strikes and even faster defenses. Loki hated to admit it, but without his magic they were very nearly evenly matched. He was stronger and more experienced, but her instincts were flawless, her moves certain and precise.  
  
It didn't help that every so often he'd find himself reaching for a spell or a dagger, only to abort the motion, leaving himself open more often than not.  
  
At one point she managed to catch hold of his wrist as he struck and throw him across the room, slamming him into the far wall with a force that would almost certainly have damaged a less-resilient opponent.  
  
At another he managed to hook her neck and a leg and throw her to the ground, grappling hard for an exhausting few minutes before she managed to roll him off and regain her feet.  
  
In the end, they were both on the ground, and he managed to slip out of an attempted shoulder lock and maneuver his way behind her, wrapping an arm around her throat with just enough pressure that she couldn't dislodge it.  
  
"Do you yield?" He murmured into her ear. When she wrapped strong fingers around his forearm and attempted to pry it loose he tightened his grasp, drawing a discomforted gasp. She drove her elbow into his ribs once, twice, three times before slapping at the ground in surrender.  
  
He let her go and they rolled apart, her gasping for breath and him panting with exertion. He pushed to his feet and offered her a hand, and she locked strong fingers around his wrist, pulling herself up.  
  
"Good match," she said, leaning over her knees to draw in deep breaths. He nodded in agreement.  
  
Drax, who had watched the match with obvious excitement while offering loud commentary and rather useless suggestions, offered them both a glass of water, which he accepted gratefully. His pulse was dropping now, the familiar adrenaline-fueled pounding subsiding into a dull yet satisfying ache. His magic was already working to heal the various bruises he could feel swelling under the skin.    
  
"You're not bad," Gamora said when they'd both mostly caught their breath, "for some noble kid."  
  
He pushed a lock of damp hair out of his forehead. "You're fairly skilled yourself. And technically, I was a prince."  
  
Eyebrows went up at that. "Well," she said at last, "don't think that means I'll go easy on you next time, now that I know."  
  
That drew a laugh from him. "I wouldn't dream of it."  
  
Despite the sweat and the exhaustion, he felt... better, more clean, than he had since leaving Thanos' Sanctuary. He took a deep breath, enjoying the pleasant ache in his lungs.  
  
Drax clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough and suddenly enough that he stumbled a step forward. "You fought well for such a small, pathetic-looking man," he said, and Loki would have killed him then and there if the sincerity of the backhanded compliment hadn't floored him. He still might have reacted violently if Rocket hadn't immediately cut in.  
  
"Say, does Groot seem like he's getting bigger to any of you?"  
  
"I am Groot."  
  
"I'm not shrinking."  
  
"I am Groot."  
  
"Yes I'm sure! But yesterday, I put a resistor on that shelf so you wouldn't eat it, and now..."  
  
Groot followed the pointed finger and reached up with long, branched fingers to grab another spare part off the shelf. It moved to put it in its mouth.  
  
"See what I mean?" he appealed to the room at large.  
  
"He's a kid. Kids grow up. I'm not sure what to tell you, buddy." Quill shrugged as Rocket grabbed the metal part, wrestling it away from Groot's stubborn fingers.  
  
"Yeah," he said once he finally got the piece away and climbed to a higher shelf to relocate it, "but it seems like he's growing up faster than he should."  
  
"I'm told all parents feel the same," Loki said with a straight face.  
  
Rocket glared at him.  
  
He got nothing more than a faint mischievous smile in return.

 

* * *

  
  
Thor's brother was a shapeshifter.  
  
What that meant, practically, was that he had seen every possible version of Loki.  
  
He had seen his brother as a horse, a snake, a wolf, a magpie. Even as children, he knew what Loki looked like as an adult, an infant, an adolescent, and an old, old man. He knew him as a sister, an elf, a bearded dwarf.  
  
Yet here, in his own skin, Thor thinks his brother has never looked less like himself.  
  
It's not just the mad grin, stretched too far across his face, or the sunken edges of his cheeks, giving his face a sickly, crazed cast. No, it's his eyes that are wrong, somehow.  
  
He can't put his finger on how. They're still the pale green that he remembers, still bright, intelligent even beneath the glaze of madness. But it's like a stranger is looking at him from out of his brother's eyes, and the thought unnerves him.  
  
His little brother was still in there somewhere, he reminded himself. Even if it really didn't look like it.  
  
_And if he wasn't?_  
  
"Thor?"  
  
Thor flinched, pushing the disloyal thought down and away. Loki _was_  in there, and he would find him and bring him back, kicking and screaming if need be.  
  
"Something interesting about my face?" Loki asked, irritation mixed with the naked contempt in his expression.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You've been staring for the past few minutes. Were it not for the walls of my prison I would swear you were going to try and kiss me." He patted the blank face of the nearest wall. "Never did I think I would be so grateful for the instruments of my confinement."  
  
See? That was the sort of thing Loki would say, before.  
  
His strange eyes met Thor's and he looked away.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"Well what?" Thor echoed.  
  
"Why are you staring at my face like I've written directions to the nearest alehouse on my forehead?"  
  
I just—you don't seem like yourself. You look different. Not like you," Thor blurted.  
  
He froze. "How so?"  
  
"I'm not sure."  
  
Loki looked caught somewhere between wary and amused. "I assure you, I am the same Loki I have always been."  
  
The way he said it made Thor feel like he was missing something.  
  
"Your father made it sound like I wasn't to receive visitors. I'm rather disappointed that isn't the case."  
  
"Loki—"  
  
"But then the Allfather will want to gather information. I'm an unsolved puzzle, and he does so hate those." He smirked, and though Loki wore that expression all the time it wasn't quite _right_ , like a likeness done by an artist who hadn't quite captured the soul of the subject. "He won't like his answer, when he finds it."  
  
Thor decided that sitting here now, trying to put to words the difference that made him so uncomfortable, would drive him mad. He met Loki's eyes, and there was nothing wrong with them, everything wrong with them. "I'll come visit you later, brother."  
  
"I'm not your brother," Loki said yet again.  
  
Thor really didn't want to believe him.  
  
But he almost did.


	6. Chapter 6

None of the books he had with him held the key to defeating an evil uncle and an undead army, Loki concluded after skimming the entire collection.  
  
Not that he had expected them to, exactly. He needed inspiration, an idea, and had hoped that something in one of the books would trigger a glorious moment of revelation and he'd know what to _do_.  
  
That moment was proving maddeningly elusive. He shut the last book and stood, banishing the volume with a sigh.  
  
"Anything?" Gamora asked when he stood up. He shook his head, arching his back and stretching.  
  
"Big surprise," Rocket mumbled, softly enough that a human probably wouldn't be able to hear. Loki wasn't human. He turned to face him.  
  
"I beg your pardon?"  
  
"Nothing." Rocket waved him off, pointedly turning his back.  
  
"Want to join us for dinner?" Quill offered.  
  
He almost declined, as he had the past couple times he'd been offered food (in Asgard's libraries he'd sometimes gone more than a week before a concerned Frigga or Thor cajoled or forcibly dragged him out, respectively), but Rocket shot him a glare like he was daring him to accept, and Loki never did well with dares. "I'd love to," he said instead. "Thank you for your kind offer."  
  
"Of course," Quill said. "I mean, you gotta eat."  
  
He could make do without for a long while, but he wasn't about to point that out. "Indeed."  
  
The food had an odd chemical tang to it that... wasn't bad, exactly, but wasn't appealing either. By asking a few tactful questions he was able to determine that it had been assembled on a molecular level by some sort of machine, which was fascinating but somewhat ruined his appetite.  
  
Of course, that could also have been the raccoon glaring holes through him as he tried to eat.  
  
Really, not even Thor had made his displeasure so glaringly obvious. Everyone else at the table gradually fell silent, glancing between the two of them with obvious discomfort.  
  
"Have I done something to offend you?" Loki asked mildly after the silence became unbearable. He couldn't call any possibilities to mind—aside from manifestations of Rocket's insatiable if odd curiosity (upon seeing him pull several tools from his dimensional hiding space, Rocket wanted to know exactly how many shoes could fit in the extra-space pocket, and had seemed put out that Loki could not give him a number beyond 'very many, I'm sure'. He had later provided a truly alarming number of shoes to experiment with, and had seemed equal parts disappointed and impressed when Loki could vanish the entire pile), they had mostly left one another alone.  
  
"What makes you think that?" Rocket's tone missed even a passing resemblance to sincerity. Loki's weren't the only eyebrows to rise at the snappish response.  
  
"Just a feeling," Loki said drily, equally insincere. Sarcasm was an art he'd mastered years before anyone else on this ship was born.  
  
Rocket slammed down his fork, standing up in his seat, which comically did not make him much taller than when he was sitting. "You know what, you're right," he said, voice harsh and angry. "I still don't trust you, and I'm tired of playacting like everything is fine and we're all friends."  
  
"Rocket—" Quill started to say, but Rocket cut him off.  
  
"See, I'm just worried we're gonna get to this shiny Viking home of yours and it'll be a trap. Who's to say you aren't going to have an army waiting for us the second we land to gift wrap us and turn us over to giant purple crazypants?"  
  
"If you feel this way then by all means, drop me off at the nearest way point. I shall find my own way back to Asgard if need be." Frustration twisted in his stomach. He'd thought they were _past_  this.  
  
"That won't be necessary," Gamora said sharply.  
  
"It'd be a good idea," Rocket countered. "He worked for  _Thanos_."  
  
"So have I," she said, neither apologetic nor proud. "So have plenty of people who didn't have a choice. Most of the people who serve Thanos do so unwillingly."  
  
"Yeah, well the rest are raging psychopaths," Rocket muttered. "Anyone else remember Ronan the Accuser? Tall ominous guy, worked for Thanos, tried to kill us all?"  
  
"I remember him." Drax raised his hand, looked around confused when no one else did the same, and gradually lowered it.  
  
"I think he's doing something weird to Groot," he said in a low voice, and that... well, that was sort of true, but his intentions there weren't _sinister_.  
  
"I'm feeding him," he said, somewhat defensively.  
  
"We give him plenty of food," Rocket said. As though to demonstrate, Groot picked up the salt shaker from the middle of the table and tried to chew the cap off.  
  
"Plants need energy," he said. "Sunlight, ideally, but there isn't much of that floating about in space, and magical energy is an acceptable substitute."  
  
"Is that even safe?"  
  
"Perfectly so."  
  
"And how would a little princess know so much about raising plants?"  
  
Loki bristled, but he forced himself to laugh. "My mother," he started, and the words stuttered in his brain but he forced himself to press through, claiming them. "My mother created and tended the largest gardens in the Nine Realms. She often recruited her sons to help when we were too unruly, to 'put our excess energy to good use', as she would say. I was a particularly unruly child. I've probably tended thousands of trees in my time."  
  
"Well, that doesn't mean you aren't leading us into a trap," Rocket shot back. "I mean, you gotta admit it seems a bit convenient that all you gotta do is get Gamora to sock you one and suddenly you're on our side. If it was that easy wouldn't everyone just turn on him?"  
  
Fair point. The others were looking vaguely uncomfortable, as though they recognized this too.  
  
Again, he ran through the lies available to him, and again he settled on the truth. If this got to be a habit, he'd have to find some new nicknames.  
  
Which actually would probably be for the best, now that he thought about it.  
  
"He promised me," Loki said carefully, "unimaginable pain should I betray him. Spent some time convincing me that such was within his power. Told me that no matter where I went, I could not hide from him. That he would hunt me down to the darkest corners of the galaxy and turn my life into an unending nightmare." He kept his smile eerily pleasant. Gamora's face was impassive, and Drax looked unimpressed, but Quill and Rocket looked like they wanted to be sick, and Groot's expression was sympathetic in an arboreal sort of way.  
  
"And this doesn't bother you?" Quill asked, more disbelieving than sarcastic.  
  
"This isn't really making the case for us trusting you," Rocket added.  
  
"When I was young, my brother and I used to sneak away from our nursemaid in order to go on what passed, for children at that young age, for adventures. Explorations of the gardens. Unsanctioned trips to the marketplace. That sort of thing. The nurse was furious, at least when she caught us." He picked up an unidentifiable piece of fruit and turned it over in his fingers as he spoke. "One day she came upon us as we were preparing for a trip rather further afield. My brother had seen a set of caves just beyond the city walls, and it was our intention to explore them."  
  
He set the thing down and picked up another, picking at it with his thumbnail. "She was beyond angry. She shouted so loud I am sure everyone in the Nine heard it. And when she had finished—she had a bit of magic. Not enough to be a proper sorceress, mind you, but enough to fix us with a tracking spell. 'There,' she told us, 'now there's nowhere in the Nine Realms you can go where I won't be able to find you.' Tho—my brother was devastated. Not for long, though. We did explore those caves." He smiled, small and triumphant.  
  
"Getting away from Thanos won't be as easy as breaking your nurse's spell," Gamora pointed out.  
  
"But I didn't break the spell," Loki said, grin taking on a sharper edge. "At that age I could hardly summon a light, let alone work something as complicated as unraveling another's casting."  
  
"So what, then?"  
  
"I set fire to the nursery." His voice filled with wry humor, but the next words were determined. "She was too busy putting out the flames to follow."  
  
His mouth set in a grim line. That nurse may have been the first to regret trying to cage the trickster, but she had not been the last. Loki valued his freedom, and he did not react well when it was kept from him. Thanos had held him far too long.  
  
The declaration hung in the charged air for a few seconds before Drax began to laugh. A startling, abrupt sound, it filled the entire room. It did not subside as the seconds ticked on, and everyone else stayed silent.  
  
"It is funny," he gasped at last, "because you were a terrible child! No one—no one should have had to put up with you!" He wiped at his eyes as his mirth subsided into giggling.  
  
"Yes, hilarious," Loki said, scowling.  
  
"I am glad you agree." Drax slammed him in the back with an enormous palm before walking away, still chuckling to himself.  
  
"So, um, terrifying story," Quill said. "Was there a point in there, or..."  
  
Loki sighed. It ruined the dramatic impact when he had to spell it out, but... "the point," he huffed, "is that whether you believe me or not, it is my intention to make Thanos regret thinking he could ever deign to control me, and I will do so with or without your aid. if you do not trust me," he finished, "trust that."    
  
He stood up from the table and retreated back to his room.  
  
Rocket found him there nearly an hour later, lying on his back on the small bunk and staring up at the ceiling. The Raccoon crept in quietly, almost subdued. "So," he said, "I talked to Groot, and it seems like you have been helping him out. I guess you do know plants."  
  
Loki smiled faintly in amusement. He saw enough of himself in the stubborn raccoon to recognize the apology in the faint praise.  
  
"I'm an excellent gardener, for a prince." Translation: apology accepted.  
  
Rocket snorted. "Don't let it go to your head."  
  
"I won't." He went back to staring at the ceiling, tracing out patterns and shuffling through his thoughts once more, searching for a plan.

* * *

  
  
The Lady Sif hooked Thor's leg as she drove her weight into one shoulder, driving him off balance and landing him flat on his back in the dust of the training ring.  
  
Odin had not seen him go down so easily in decades. He must truly have been distracted to not have seen such an obvious move coming.  
  
He set himself on the sidelines and continued to watch. Normally, he did not allow himself the luxury of spending so much time outside observing his son, but these had been a trying few days.  
  
If he were honest with himself, a large part of the reason he was out here was because it was unlikely he would run into Frigga. Somehow she had learned of the words he had spoken in anger at Loki's sentencing, and her displeasure was one of the few things that the Allfather would flinch from.  
  
Besides, recent events would indicate that he did not know his sons as well as perhaps he should. Anything done to remedy that would not be misplaced.  
  
Thor made it back to his feet and charged wildly, almost recklessly. The charge had a good deal of power behind it, but with so little control it would be easy to redirect. Sif seemed to think the same, sidestepping the blow and catching his arm to throw him to the ground once more.  
  
She stood aside, waiting for him to regain his feet, but had she been an actual opponent Thor would have been finished. As it was, the fight ended a few moments later when she twisted underneath another wild strike and got behind him, the point of her dagger pressed beneath his ear.  
  
"I yield," Thor said, his voice frustrated and exhausted.  
  
He stomped off the field. Behind him, the dark clouds that had gathered overhead crackled ominously.  
  
Sif moved to follow, but Odin caught her eye and prevented her with a single sharp shake of his head. He stepped forward himself, drawing Thor's attention.  
  
"Father," he said, his face not relaxing from the grim angles into which it was pinched. "I did not see you there."  
  
"My son," Odin said, falling into step with him. It was an effort to keep up with Thor's angry strides, just one more reminder that his sons were no longer the small boys they once were. "What troubles you?"  
  
It was a foolish question. He already knew what troubled the boy, what troubled them all, but still the conversation had to be opened, and the direct route seemed the best way to prevent another storm from tearing apart Frigga's gardens. Maybe, if he succeeded, she'd even be inspired to forgive him.  
  
It seemed unlikely, but a king could dream.  
  
"It is Loki," Thor growled, raking back a handful of his hair and clutching it hard enough he was liable to tear it out. A few raindrops spattered erratically on the path ahead of them. "I went to see him. In some ways it was like talking to my brother, and yet also like he was a complete stranger to me."  
  
Thor started worrying the hem of his shirt, and when he looked up the same storm that was brewing overhead was already raging behind his eyes, bright and yet shadowed like lightning in the clouds. "It doesn't make any sense. I feel as though I'm going mad."  
  
"I understand," Odin said, and he did. After all, he had spoken to his mad younger son in the throne room, and if he had seemed familiar it wasn't because of any resemblance to the child he'd raised. This Loki had been cavalier and cruel and far, far more spiteful than he'd ever seen from the boy before now.  
  
He understood, too, how it felt to lose a brother to madness. The memories came to his mind unbidden, and his fingers sought out the thin scar on his left palm, fingernail digging a groove against the hard edge in his flesh.  
  
Truth be told, the boy had reminded Odin of his own brother, tugging at painful memories that he'd successfully kept buried for so long.  
  
Perhaps that was why he'd been so harsh, said the things that he did. It was hard not to lash out when Loki had stood there like an shadow of the painful and forgotten past, his laughter an echo of bitter memories.  
  
"Do you think my brother shall ever be returned to us?" The hope in Thor's voice pierced Odin where he stood. He remembered having that same hope.  
  
He remembered what came after.  
  
His brother, laughter they'd once shared turned mocking against him.  
  
His brother, once-easy conversations turned to minefields they must tiptoe around, and explosions of rage and pain that would knock the both of them off their feet.  
  
His brother, stirring up dissent and the threat of war where once his silver tongue had helped a young king keep the peace.  
  
His son, his first son, the arrow through his heart radiating a magic with a signature as familiar to him as his own.  
  
His brother, stone-faced and unrepentant, ignoring Frigga's frantic pleas through her tears that he weep for his crime, just once, and finish the spell that would bring Baldr back to them. The ice in his eyes as he refused Odin's every entreaty, and Odin had never hated the frost before then.  
  
His brother, broken and mad, spiralling down into a dark Odin dare not retrieve him from.  
  
"I would not hold that hope, my son," he said, and the raindrops that had teased at the ground began to fall in earnest as Thor's face collapsed.  
  
No, such hope led only to pain.  
  
And yet... thinking on his brother had left something nagging at the back of his mind, a misplaced symmetry that itched at his thoughts.  
  
It was past time, he decided, to pay Loki a visit.


	7. Chapter 7

The next day found Loki in the common area once more, alternating between uneasy pacing and the aimless scribbling of notes and diagrams that bubbled out into complex, unhelpful webs, concepts connected without a pattern that he could untangle.  
  
The problem with all of his plans was that too much depended entirely upon him.  
  
Defeating the undead was a wickedly difficult task for a warrior. The things were all but impervious to traditional weapons, and even if you did manage to injure them, they could shrug off a remarkable amount of damage and continue coming after you. It took either massive amounts of damage or remarkable precision to take one out of the picture entirely using the typical methods. With a strong magical weapon like Mjolnir the odds were better, but few possessed such weapons, and even with them the things would be a challenge.  
  
He was not, however, a warrior.  
  
To those using magic, they were remarkably vulnerable. The easiest approach was to simply insert your will between them and whatever power source animated them, causing them to drop like a puppet with cut strings. With a little more effort, you could replace that power with your own and take control of the monster yourself.  
  
That was not simple, though, and took time, and neither method was ideal for taking on more than one or two of the creatures at a time.  
  
Besides that, there were very few sorcerers on Asgard, and almost all of those were healers or scholars or craftsmen untrained in the ways of battle.  
  
A plan that involved him taking on an entire undead army all by himself was not an idea he relished. Especially since Hela and his uncle would no doubt take offense to his attack and he could very well end up fighting them as well. He wasn't suicidal (not anymore, he didn't think, if he was, he could have just told Thanos no and saved himself all this trouble), and even if he was there were less painful ways to go.  
  
He was used to relying on himself when he made plans; even on adventures with Thor and his friends, he would have backups for his backups plotted out in case something went wrong.  
  
Now, though, this was too big for him alone, and he needed to account for the skills of those with him if he wished to have any chance of success.  
  
Really, though, as decent as they seemed to be, they were a handful of warriors. Added to Asgard's already significant army, even Drax and Gamora would be but drops in a great lake.  
  
Unless there were some way to give them a tactical advantage.  
  
Should he try to teach them magic? No, the only one he had sensed even a glimmer of potential in was Quill, and with his rash and impatient nature he would be impossible as a sorcerer. Besides, there wasn't time for the sort of extensive training he would need to be even close to combat-ready.  
  
He needed to come at this from another angle.    
  
"So which one of you is responsible for repairs and things of that nature?" he asked, pitching his voice to be heard above the music from that incessant tape.  
  
"That would be me." Rocket, of course. "Why, you planning on breaking something?"  
  
"Quite the opposite, actually." He smiled mysteriously. "Would you consider yourself quite skilled in this regard?"  
  
"Ain't nobody better'n me," he said so simply that Loki believed him.  
  
"Could you build something to channel energy?"  
  
The little beast glared at him. "C'mon, talk about vague requests. 'Something to channel energy.' Could be the converter of an F-17 hyperdrive core or my great-grandma's—"  
  
"Hela's warriors," he said, "are undead beings created of significant magical energy. They will be nearly impervious to ordinary weaponry and incredibly difficult to kill or incapacitate."  
  
"And now we've changed topics to the Viking Space Zombies. Woo-hoo."  
  
"The easiest way to kill them," he continued, forcing down his rising irritation, "is using magic. There's a particular spell that I remember from—" Memories of that particular outing flooded back with almost painful clarity. He, Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three had been hunting for a rumored treasure in the far reaches of the forests of Alfheim. Instead, they'd stumbled across a pack of draugr, grotesque creatures rotted nearly to the bone but drawing their strength from the magic of the ancient forest itself. It had been before Thor was entrusted with Mjolnir, and nearly all of the warriors had shattered weapons on petrified sinew before Loki completed the spell that incinerated them in a flash of blinding light. Fandral had taken a wound to the thigh that became infected, and it had taken them days to half-carry him back to the Bifrost site.  
  
"I could ready the spell in advance so another could use it, but I would require something to channel the energy of the spell and allow it to be cast by someone incapable of magic. It should be able to trigger the spell on demand and allow it to be targeted by the wielder, much like a projectile weapon."  
  
"So what you're saying is you need a big-ass space gun," Quill put in helpfully, hands far apart, presumably to demonstrate just how big 'big-ass' was.  
  
"Not precisely. I don't need a weapon, only the means to channel the spell." He rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. His headache at this point felt like something _alive_.  
  
"A _magic_  big-ass space gun," Quill corrected, holding hands up in mock-surrender. "Whoops. My mistake."  
  
"Why didn't you say so? Yeah, I can do big-ass space gun. No problem." Rocket's grin took on a manic quality. "Mind if I test it on—"  
  
"No, Rocket," Quill, Loki, and Gamora said at once. "I am Groot," Groot added.  
  
"Fine, sure, no need to get all snippy about it," he said. "Let's build some zombie-ass-kicking space guns!"

* * *

  
  
Thor's wandering feet took him through the drizzling garden paths, underneath the great trees and along the shores, then, as though propelled by an outside force, they set him pacing along the corridors, to the library, his rooms, his _brother's_  rooms and back again until finally, inevitably, they brought him back down to the dungeons.  
  
He stood outside the clear barrier of his brother's cell, watching. Loki was reading one of the books their mother had left, a novel he'd enjoyed as a young boy, with obvious distaste.  
  
He glanced up when Thor entered, muttered "you again," then looked down, turning the page with deliberate slowness.  
  
Thor stood, watching him, his thoughts racing like a swarm of bees after their nest has been disturbed. He wanted... he didn't know what he wanted. To hug his brother. To beat him senseless. For things to be the way they were. To change the past so they never were that way to begin with.  
  
"I don't want to give up on you," Thor said at last. He could hear the emotion trembling in his voice. He didn't care.  
  
Loki... Loki didn't blink. "And I don't want you to bother me," he said, turning the page again.  
  
"I'm being serious."  
  
"As am I." He lowered the book, finally _looked_  at Thor, but the eyes that met his were still the same shade of wrong and it made him want to tear himself apart. "I don't care what you want, Thor. Go away and leave me alone."  
  
"Please, just give me something," he begged. "Some sign that the brother I remember is still in there somewhere."  
  
The grin that stretched his face was alien and completely unfamiliar. "I'm not your brother," he said, and the glib amusement in his voice nearly forced Thor back a step.  
  
"Why do you toy with me?" Thor asked through gritted teeth. "I can tell you're trying to hurt me, but I can't understand _why_. Why so much spite, Loki? What could I possibly have done to anger you so?"  
  
"You sound like Odin," he said, voice turning suddenly poisonous. "Twisting everything I say, everything I do until it is about _you_. I meant what I said, Thor. I care nothing about you. I don't love you. I don't hate you. I'm not angry with you, because that would require that I _care_. You are utterly insignificant to me."  
  
He finished the pronouncement and went back to his book, waiting a short pause before turning another page.  
  
Thor twisted and drove his fist into a pillar, stone dust crumbling beneath his knuckles. His anger bubbled over into a vicious scream.  
  
Loki merely glanced up, rolled his eyes, and ignored him.  
  
"Fine," he shouted. "Father was right. I didn't want to believe him, but I see now there is nothing left in you worth trying to redeem." His breath came in deep, ragged gasps, rage and panic and despair and grief swirling together and spinning out as words he could never take back.  
  
"I look for my brother," he said through the red spots growing in his vision, "and all that I see staring back at me is a _monster_."  
  
Loki flinched, finally, and some part of Thor hoped that it hurt enough to reach him, to snap him out of whatever the Hel was possessing him and show some sign of his brother underneath...  
  
When Loki turned back to him it was with the wide, unnatural grin that unnerved him before, amusement and malice darkening his eyes.  
  
"I'll kill you for that," he said, but he didn't stop smiling.  
  
Thor shivered, and took a step back. Something constricted inside his chest, and this mad creature wasn't his little brother, he _couldn't_  be.  
  
He turned and nearly fled back up the stairs, the memory of those dark eyes following him.

* * *

  
  
Loki spent half his time the next few days working out modifications to the undead-frying spell to make it self-sufficient and the other half helping Rocket with the prototype of the gun, making adjustments where needed to accommodate the shape and flow of the magic it would harness. Somehow his fingers always ended up stained with grease, and as his nerves always made him fidgety this translated to smudged fingerprints up his arms, on his clothes, on his face and the ends of his hair. He cast a glamour over the mess when Gamora laughed, but that didn't stop him feeling dirty and disheveled.  
  
Whenever he had the chance he would channel a bit of energy into the tree, which by now was nearly as tall as he was. The creature would look at him gratefully and tell him it was Groot, and he was finally beginning to understand.  
  
The Allspeak didn't translate the tree-creature's language not because it was too complex, but because, at the surface level, what they heard was what he was actually saying. There were subtleties, though, as to what it meant from moment to moment to _be_  Groot.  
  
So Groot did not say "stop that or I will bite your toes off," he said, "I am Groot," where Groot was a creature who was irritated with you and considering inflicting minor bodily harm. Groot did not say "I am hungry and want to eat that shoe," he said "I am Groot," where Groot was a hungry creature who currently had a taste for shoe. Every time he said something, it required him to re-define himself, to shift the core of his identity to match his intended meaning.  
  
The method had several shortcomings; for one, it was nearly impossible for Groot to lie. However, for all that, there was something unmistakably elegant about the whole thing. He was shocked that Rocket, with his evident pragmatism, was able to grasp it so easily. Perhaps he had underestimated the furry little engineer.

He suspected, too, that the ability to understand his meaning might in some way depend on the development of an emotional bond, though how or why this was the case he was still attempting to determine. It would explain, though, why only those closest to him seemed to be able to translate his speech.   
  
"This needs to be bigger," he said, handing back a curved piece of metal. It wasn't uru, which would have been his first choice, but the titanium blend seemed sufficiently conductive for their purposes.  
  
"How about no. If I make that any bigger, it'll throw off the balance."  
  
Loki picked up a pen and started scribbling a combination of practice runes onto the counter. "I need more room to finish the part of the spell that draws in ambient energy and creates an _enchanted_  light," he said. "Leave it off and we've invented a large, intimidating flashlight."  
  
"Can't you just carve smaller?"  
  
He crossed out one rune and replaced it with another, doodling adjustments into the margins. "Yes, if you want to risk the smallest of scratches making the components run together. It should be interesting to see what explodes first at that point."  
  
"Fine." Rocket fell silent, and he leaned back, tapping at the spot that still didn't flow quite right with the end of his pen.  
  
"What if I change the angle here," Rocket said after a few seconds, tapping a claw against a spot on his hastily scrawled blueprint. "Increase the surface area but not the total volume."  
  
"That could work," Loki agreed, and he made a note.  
  
Part of Loki, the part that had come to expect everything going wrong, didn't like to hope.  
  
But this was coming along far better than he expected, and maybe, just maybe, this whole crazy scheme could work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I divided up the chapters and Odin's conversation with Loki ended up in the next chapter. I may update faster to make up for that... anyway, I hope this was still worthwhile and I promise things will start happening soon!


	8. Chapter 8

Less than a day later, Loki carefully, delicately carved the last rune onto Rocket's channeling device, resolutely not bowing to the raccoon's demand that it be called the Zombie Blaster.   
  
He spent another hour meticulously going over each one, checking and rechecking them for correctness, then he did it all again.   
  
After the third check he could stall no longer, even when his instincts were fighting against the next step, necessary as it was. He knew as a sorcerer, as a scholar there was no choice about how to proceed. That the step was distasteful made it no less necessary.    
  
"You need a what?" Quill asked when Loki came to him with the list of necessary materials.    
  
"I don't much care for it either," he offered. "But I'd rather not send all of you into battle against a near-invulnerable undead army with weapons that don't work."   
  
"Definitely wasn't saying we should do that." He looked close to relenting, but then shifted to suspicious as something else occurred to him. Quill was otherwise nothing like his brother, but the way his emotions played across his face like a parade made Loki's heart ache for Thor. "This isn't like Rocket with that guy's leg, is it? You aren't just making me get this for a laugh?"   
  
Loki sighed. "Unfortunately no."   
  
"Great. I gotta go out there and find someone who'll sell me a 'small dead animal, preferably a rodent, intact'. This is my life."   
  
"They will think you are creepy and weird," Drax put in helpfully from the other side of the room.   
  
"Don't forget the rest." Loki could technically do without the other ingredients, but it would be more difficult. And messier.    
  
"Yeah, yeah, I'll get your creepy eye-of-Newt and whatever."   
  
Loki frowned, about to say that wasn't on his list, but decided it was a Midgardian cultural reference of some sort. He had thought himself aware, at least generally, of Midgard's culture, but apparently the books in the library, updated every few centuries, were already out of date.    
  
"That was not on the list," Drax said, and thank goodness for him. As irritating as he was to talk to, Loki had figured out how to avoid most of these frustrating interludes within the first ten minutes. Especially since what was needed to avoid the straightforward warrior's confusion was nearly the same as what was needed to be understood despite the occasional shortcomings of the Allspeak. Quill, on the other hand, was probably doomed to spend his entire life explaining his ridiculous Midgardian slang to his overly dense companion. The two brands of annoying deserved one another.    
  
"It was a—you know what, never mind." Quill huffed. "Bye, I'm off to go haggle for a dead animal for Loki."   
  
Gamora gave a disinterested little wave from where she was sharpening a small knife. She seemed to have nearly as many on her person at one time as Loki, and as he hadn't sensed even the faintest trace of magic from her, he'd no idea where she kept them all. Only a fool would ask, but he couldn't help being curious.   
  
"I could go, if it makes you uncomfortable," Loki offered.   
  
Quill snorted. "And trust you with the credits? Nuh-Uh. I'm not an idiot."   
  
Loki didn't mention the store of Asgardian gold he kept in a dimensional pocket for emergencies. After all, he didn't really want shopping duty either.    
  
When Quill returned, it was with a small, faintly unpleasant bag and a bad attitude.    
  
"So I can never come here again," he said, swinging the bag onto the table. "Here you go. I hope you're grateful."   
  
Loki hummed, poking inside to check the contents. "We'll be sure you receive proper credit when the project is finished and we all don't die.  I performed the magic, Rocket the engineering, and you brought back the groceries. The bards shall sing songs, I'm sure."   
  
Quill threw up his hands. "I'm surrounded by sarcastic a-holes."   
  
"Ungrateful sarcastic a-holes," Loki agreed.    
  
"Do you have everything you need?" Gamora leaned over his shoulder, the closeness vaguely threatening even though he knew by now she didn't mean it to be.   
  
"It shall be sufficient," he said, ignoring Quill when he muttered back 'it shall be sufficient' in a mocking singsong and rolled his eyes.    
  
He pulled out a black powder and a clear liquid, mixed them together into a thick, oily paint, and drew a large circle on the floor.    
  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Quill said, springing forward and shaking his head. "Not cool, dude. Not cool. No smearing whatever that is on the floor of my spaceship, no. Bad Viking."   
  
Loki didn't look up, getting down on his knees to start inking tiny runes along the circle's perimeter. "Which is more important to you, the continued existence of the known universe or a clean floor?"   
  
He heard shuffled footsteps and then an indignant "Peter!" In Gamora's voice.    
  
"Don't 'Peter' me! He's fingerpainting on my ship!"   
  
A silence followed that, by the sound of it, was most likely a staring contest before Quill made a disgusted sound. "Fine, but I can't watch this." He stalked off muttering something about space wizards and arts and crafts time.    
  
Loki spent two hours on his hands and knees and finally his stomach, painting the tiny runes and then checking and rechecking them, then another thirty minutes fixing them when Groot wandered by and tried to lick the paint off the floor.    
  
When he was absolutely sure they were correct, he pulled out the carcass. It was a small beast that resembled a Midgardian squirrel, with a faint purple tint to its fur and broad, triangular teeth. He laid it in the center of the circle before clapping his hands together.    
  
"Gamora," he said, "I need you to bring the weapon over here." It struck him once he finished that the commanding tone might do him no favors, but apparently she recognized it as the product of focus on his work and not disrespect, because she stood without complaint.    
  
"The Zombie Blaster," Rocket clarified, as though there were a good half-dozen other weapons he could have meant. "Hey, I wanna do the test run!"    
  
"I need you to keep an eye on Groot. If he decides to try and eat anything at this stage the results will not be… ideal."   
  
"I am Groot!"   
  
"It's not slander if you did it less than an hour ago, buddy." Rocket clambered up onto a countertop. "Fine, I'll babysit the big toddler here.  But when it comes zombie blasting time..."   
  
"I'm sure you'll get first dibs," Quill finished. "So what's up, are we testing it out?" He made a point of not looking at the floor where the spell had been arrayed.    
  
"We are. I need you here," he gestured Gamora to a spot across the room, "aiming for the center of the circle. Rocket and Groot here, Quill on the other side, and Drax by the door in case this doesn't work and it tries to escape. Remember, the spell _should_  be harmless to anything that's properly alive, but that was before I modified more than a third of it to tie it to the machinery, so let's not make any assumptions. If there is an explosion try to stay close to the ground."    
  
"Wait, what are we doing, again?"   
  
Loki didn't answer. He knelt down at the side of the circle and brushed his fingertips against the runes, allowing his magic to dribble into them and seal the circle.    
  
"—because if there's any chance of explosions maybe we should—"   
  
"Hush," he said, and directed the energy into the dead creature at the center of the spell.    
  
Nothing seemed to happen. At the edges of his awareness, he could feel the rapt attention of his companions fading, their interest waning as the beast remained limp and still.    
  
"Is it gonna—" one furry limb twitched, and the creature stirred. It blinked, and it's glazed eyes filled with a flickering green glow. It pushed itself to stiffened feet, tendrils of power curling around it and wrapping bone and sinew back together.    
  
They stood in arrested silence, staring down at the creature as it drew itself up.    
  
"I am Groot?"   
  
"No, you idiot, it's not my kid! Why would the zombie squirrel be my kid, it looks nothing like me!"   
  
"I am Groot."    
  
"Of course we both have hair! Lots of things have hair, Quill has hair and you didn't ask him if—"   
  
The beast gave out an earsplitting shriek and threw itself straight at Loki. A panicked shield flickered to life in front of him, then there was a dull chime and a flash of white light as Gamora fired.    
  
The creature passed right through the center of the blast and disintegrated. Deep cracks spread through undead flesh where it touched the light, and the creature's skin blackened, peeling up and out. The underneath edges glowed red like a flame catching on paper and then it crumbled apart, dashing against the shield and pouring to the floor like the contents of a spilled urn.    
  
A stunned silence fell over the group.    
  
"It worked!" Rocket said at last, jumping down from the counter and taking the gun from Gamora, examining it carefully for damage.     
  
"You guys," Quill pointed back and forth between Rocket and Loki, "are cleaning this up."    
  
"I am Groot."   
  
"What do you have to be sorry for?"   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
"Ugh, for the last time, it wasn't my kid! It was just some creepy squirrel thing we found to test the Zombie Blaster on." Rocket laid his ears flat in his most peeved expression, but had already retrieved the gun and was examining it carefully for damage.   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
Loki sat down, taking careful, measured breaths. The creature was small, but reanimation spells were always draining, and he'd poured a lot of magic into the entrapped spell.    
  
"Whoa there, Lokster, you doing alright?" Quill's hand fell on his shoulder, and he winced more for the way it reminded him of his brother than from the actual contact.    
  
"Fine," he said. "Rocket!"   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
"How many of those do you think we can build before we reach Asgard?"   
  
He was almost certain the wolfish grin on Rocket's face matched his own. "I dunno. How about we find out?"   
  


* * *

  
  
It was a couple of days, surprisingly, before Odin showed up on the other side of the clear force field that was one of his cell's four walls.    
  
Loki stood and crossed his arms but said nothing, only glared at his one-time brother.    
  
"You asked," Odin said at last, "whether I should like to hear your reasons for invading Midgard. I believe I  want to hear them now."   
  
Ah. Too late, old man. Far too late to start listening now.   
  
"And you told me that you knew them already. So why don't you tell me, Allfather?"   
  
Odin nodded. "I believe you are angry with your brother. That you sought to hurt him by attacking Midgard as you did."   
  
Loki nodded. "That is certainly part of the reason, yes."   
  
"And the rest?"   
  
"Does it matter?" He spread his arms as though to ask _does everything look as though it is going according to plan?_  Which it was, actually, but Odin shouldn't have been able to guess that.    
  
"Perhaps," Odin said. Then, "which brother?"    
  
Ah. So he had finally caught the hints and put them together. He laughed, falling back onto the bed and crossing his legs. "Finally, he asks the right question. The answer should be obvious, really." He brushed a finger over his lips, where the phantom feeling of stitches still occasionally lingered. "Helblindi has done nothing to offend me, nothing to offend anyone, usually, that's just the way he is. Byleistr is an ass, but a mostly harmless one and I'm used to that. I have but one other brother."   
  
Well, there was the one the Allfather stole from Laufey and raised, but he was dead by now if he was lucky, and Loki didn't count him.    
  
Odin's face was priceless. He'd come down here to check a hunch, but Loki could see that until this moment, he hadn't believed it could be true.    
  
"Loki?" Odin said, sounding at once more cautious and more open than he had a moment ago.    
  
"Now that could be either of us, apparently. Really, you named a kid after me? Have you grown nostalgic in your old age, brother, or did you simply hate the boy?"   
  
"So it is you."   
  
"I've not exactly worked hard to keep the secret. Been tossing out hints left and right, actually. I straight up told your wife and son, yet you all persisted in seeing what you wished to. Your dear son and brother, still in there somewhere deep down." Loki grinned. "Frigga was tripping over herself to reassure me that I'm not a monster, when she's the one who gave me that title in the first place. Funny, isn't it?"   
  
Odin's face hardened, his single eye colder than both of Laufey's. "Where is my son?"   
  
"Thor's upstairs. At least, I assume he is. You can check if you want, I won't stop you." He sat up so he could lean his chin on one hand and paint an innocent expression over his face.    
  
"My other son." My, but he would have been intimidating if Loki didn't know him. Once you'd seen him drunk enough to sing off-key and dance on the tabletop to impress a girl, though, that sort of ruined the effect.   
  
"Oh, so now he's your son. You figure out I'm involved and suddenly you care about the boy's welfare."   
  
"What did you do?" Something desperate crept into Odin's voice, and he relished it.    
  
"Introduced him to his birthright, apparently."    
  
"Loki—"   
  
"Does it hurt, Allfather?" He said softly, surging to his feet. "Does it pain you not to know what has become of your child? To realize they are at another's mercy and beyond your reach?"   
  
"It is not the same!"    
  
"It is exactly the same!" All the amusement in his face, the relaxation in his posture, evaporated as he screamed the words. Every muscle quivered with rage. "The only difference is that I have always loved my children, even when they were not convenient! Yes, they cause trouble but I do not abandon them, or dismiss them, or throw them off into the void, and if you playacted as one of them it would not take me weeks to notice!"   
  
Now that he was screaming, it seemed Odin could rein in his temper. "Tell me what has become of my son. I shall not ask again."   
  
"Does it matter? Maybe I killed him. Maybe I slit his throat and left his body to rot in the prison you carved for me. Maybe I toppled him back into the void and he falls still, and will continue to fall until his body consumes itself. Maybe I left him chained to a sunless rock in the dead of space. Maybe—"   
  
Odin stepped through the force shield as though it wasn't there at all, and the rage on his face could have won him the title of Thunderer from Thor. Uncontrolled sparks of magic snapped on his fingertips as they reached for Loki's throat—   
  
—and passed right through.    
  
The illusion laughed. "Oh, brother. Will you always fall for that? I haven't actually been here for some time."    
  
Odin readied a burst of magic and poised to strike.    
  
"Neither are you, according to the guards. In fact, you're stepping into the weapons vault as we speak. Hurry, brother. You won't want to miss this."   
  
Odin struck and the double crumbled into motes of golden light, then into nothingness.   
  
He screamed into the empty air before racing up the steps two at a time towards the vaults.   



	9. Chapter 9

"Father? Why did you call me here?" Thor and his father walked side-by-side down the hall, and the old king hadn't said a word since he sent for him.    
  
Odin's voice was unhurried, but his steps were surprisingly quick. "My son. There is something I need for you to see." They took a turn down the hall, and he recognized their destination.  Why was his father taking him to the weapons vault?   
  
The guards stood aside at their approach, and Odin swept the doors open with a large, dramatic gesture that was very unlike him. Thor pushed down a prickle of unease. "Father?" he asked again.    
  
Odin strode through the vault, stopping only when he reached the raised pedestal that bore the Tesseract.    
  
"For you to understand the things I am about to show you, there are some things you must know," he said gravely. "I fear your knowledge of our family tree has for too long been left appallingly incomplete."   
  
The unease was back, prickling in Thor's gut, sending electrified shivers up his spine not unlike the lightning he commanded.  "How so?"    
  
"Your siblings, for one. Though the only one who yet lives is not of your blood."   
  
"You and mother told me of Loki's true heritage after his fall from the Bifrost," Thor said carefully.    
  
The king waved a hand dismissively. "It is not your brother of whom I speak."   
  
Something icy settled in Thor's lungs, gripping his heart until it struggled to beat. He looked down at the floor as though he could see through it, peel back the layers and look down into the dungeon cell where his brother was being held.    
  
He looked back to Odin, who shook his head. "The being you fought on Midgard, the one I imprisoned, was your uncle, though not by blood. My own blood-brother Loki, for whom your brother was named. He is a shapeshifter and took on the form of my youngest son to torment me."    
  
The ground about Thor swirled unsteadily. This was worse, so much worse than when his father and mother had pulled him aside after his brother's fall from the Bifrost and confided to him that Loki was not his blood, that he belonged instead to the race that Thor had so callously vowed to eradicate. "Then what of my brother?" Thor asked, and it was a wonder that the fear and sorrow in his voice didn't choke him.    
  
"Perished in the void as we feared," Odin said, "or else slaughtered by his uncle. It no longer matters. Remember I have said that you have other siblings, one of whom yet lives."   
  
Thor wanted to argue that it _did_  matter, _of course_  it mattered what happened to Loki, but he swallowed it down and waited for the rest of his father's explanation.   
  
"Your elder brother Baldr, whom you never met, was killed by the actions of that same uncle as he sought to revenge himself upon me for actions I had taken against his own children." Without giving Thor time to process this, he added more. "I imprisoned him for the actions that led to Baldr's death, carved out a place of horror and cast it with him into the void. Your sister Hela was his child, taken in after I took from her the parents of her birth.   
  
"I forged her into a weapon to use against the Nine, my conqueror, my executioner. Together we drew war and ruin and destruction in our wake, and we built the empire of Asgard on the mangled carcasses of the fallen. Then, when I decided I no longer liked the look of the blood staining our hands, I sent her, too, away, so I could paint over our bloody history and play at being a peaceful ruler in my subdued kingdom."   
  
Odin looked calm and impassive as ever, his one eye fixed on Thor as though searching for his reaction.    
  
"No, that's not—it can't be like that!" He shook his head wildly. Loki dead, he and another unknown brother murdered by his uncle, the Nine Realms brutally subjugated at his father's hand. And then, "I have a sister?"   
  
"Aye." His father reached for the Tesseract, and the blue light guttered like a candle as he lifted it. "Should you like to meet her?"   
  
His father raised the glowing cube aloft just as his father scrambled through the open doorway, pulling up short when he saw himself and coming to a stop beside Thor.    
  
Thor looked between the two Odins, feeling just as devastatedly lost as he had through this entire conversation.    
  
"Ah, brother," said the Odin holding the cube, "so good of you to join us."   
  
He gave a twist and an unearthly portal opened before them like a tear in the fabric of space itself, radiating chill and _wrong_. A flutter of wind tugged at the bottom of Thor's cape, and Mjolnir was in his hand before he could finish gathering his thoughts.    
  
The Odin that wasn't met his eyes in the light from the unearthly portal. "You want to throw that hammer, boy?" His appearance rippled and changed,  and Loki, _his_  Loki, stood before him once more. "Go ahead."   
  
Beside him the real Odin growled, almost drowned out now by the wind of the portal. "Why persist in wearing that face, brother, when I know now what you are?"   
  
"I am Loki," he said simply. "Or did I get it wrong? There are so _many_  of us now, it's hard to tell. Or rather were. Things should be far less confusing now that I've killed this one—"   
  
Thor hadn't even registered that he'd thrown Mjolnir, but the hammer flew straight towards his uncle's skull with enough force to crush it into the far wall, his ribs heaving not, he suspected, with the effort of throwing it so hard but with repressed cries of anger.    
  
Mjolnir hurtled toward the imposter—and stopped, quivering and caught by the head in his outstretched hand.    
  
Loki looked back to him and smiled, utterly smug. "Feel better?" Thor tried to call the hammer back, but it twitched in the enemy's grip and didn't budge.    
  
A flicker of movement drew everyone's attention back to the open portal. Green sparks danced with the Tesseract's bright blue, and a feminine figure swept through the doorway, trailing both. She wore dark, close-fitting armor that reflected light at unnatural angles, and a dark cape trailed behind her, seeming to sweep up the shadows of the room and pool them at her feet. The dark hair and pale skin reminded Thor of his brother, making it seem less surreal that yes, this was his sister, even though he was technically related to neither.   
  
Her gaze brushed past Thor and Loki, lingering for a second on the Tesseract before moving to Odin and staying there.    
  
"Father," she said, and the mixture of emotions that spasmed across her face was unreadable.    
  
"Yes," Odin said, stepping forward to meet her level gaze.    
  
"I wasn't talking to you, Odin," she said, tossing her head and allowing her hair to fan out behind her. It floated slightly above where it should have, occasionally sparking with green or blue magic. "Father, what shall we do with my uncle?"   
  
"I don't know, my dear," Loki said, tossing Mjolnir almost casually aside and intoning the words like an actor reading a script. "What did he teach you to do with an enemy?"   
  
The smile that appeared on her face so exactly matched the one on the fake Loki's that for a second they looked like twins. "I was hoping you would say that."   
  
Thor hazarded a glance over at his father, who hadn't reacted. Why didn't he at least try to—   
  
"Close the portal and drop the Tesseract."   
  
Frigga held the sword at her not-son's throat perfectly steady, standing behind him with the blade hooked underneath the arm holding the Tesseract and pressed against the pulse of the carotid artery. Thor was reminded of where Loki, his Loki, had learned his stealth. No one, save perhaps Odin himself, had noticed the queen's entrance until it was too late.    
  
Loki stiffened then visibly forced himself to relax, to smile. "You'll regret this," he said, voice soft and dangerous. Hela fingered an evil-looking black knife but looked to her father, and whatever she saw in his eyes, she didn't attack.    
  
"I regret not ending you sooner." The blade didn't twitch so much as a fraction. "Drop it and I may again be persuaded to mercy."   
  
"Yes, but you see, I don't think you can do it."    
  
"You hurt my sons. I've killed men for less before now."   
  
In a movement almost too quick to follow he gripped her wrist and spun to face her, holding the blade still pressed against his throat. The sharp edge drew a thin line of blood. "I don't doubt your bloodthirstiness, Allmother," he spat. "But I know your sentimentality, and it is a weakness. Your love for your sons is something I well know. Could you do it?"    
  
He took a small step toward her, forcing her to adjust the grip to keep the blade in place without dealing the killing strike. "Could you strike me down as I now stand? Watch your son's blood empty on the paving stones, the light fade from his eyes? If you never saw him again, could you ever be sure? Maybe you are looking at him now, his mind surrendered to my control. Perhaps I am he, playing a cruel prank with intelligence dredged up from histories and rumor. Or maybe he is alive somewhere, and I am the only one who can tell you where to find him. If you made that choice, sure as you are, could you live with it?"   
  
Their eyes met for a second, and then the hand that held her wrist forced the blade down and wrenched until it clattered out of her grasp. "I thought not," he said softly.     
  
As though released from a spell, Thor launched himself into motion, bellowing his rage. Frigga cried out and Odin lunged as though to stop him but a second too late—he was on top of his uncle, swinging wildly to make the impostor pay for hurting his mother.    
  
He realized when his blow connected that he had been expecting it to be like fighting the Loki he knew, and though Loki wasn't helpless on the training field—no prince of Asgard was anything less than a warrior—Thor's ability to defeat him in a physical brawl had never been in question.    
  
This wasn't like fighting his brother, though, for all their physical likeness.  The first blow fell with the satisfying crack of bone against flesh, and his enemy staggered, but the second was slower, and landed with barely enough force to knock his opponent back. By the third he had trouble lifting his arm, and then both his fists dropped to his side, his arms too drained of strength to move. Magic, he realized belatedly, as one arm trapped him and spun him between his enemy and his parents like a human shield, while the other pressed an unseen knife against his throat. Some sort of paralysis spell. The wretch had _cheated_.   
  
"Well, that was an object lesson in prudence," his brothers voice hissed beside his ear. "Now, Allfather, Allmother, not another step or you shall find yourself entirely childless. Hela, an escort if you will."   
  
The portal had closed sometime in the scuffle, the Tesseract vanished the same way odds and ends disappeared around his brother. This apparently didn't matter to Hela; she clapped her hands and soldiers began filling the empty space in the vault, coming to attention and standing perfectly, inhumanly still. They wore burnished golden armor, carried gleaming swords and shields, but their eyes burned with green fire and what he could see beneath their helms was the pale, smooth white of bleached bone.    
  
"Now then," Loki said, "let's do head outside. I think I'd like to let the rest of Asgard in on our little chat." The knife pressed harder into Thor's throat, and his fists clenched uselessly at his sides. "Please. After you."   
  


* * *

  
Words could not describe the burning nostalgia Loki felt at the back of his throat when Asgard herself appeared on the Guardian's viewscreen.    
  
It looked different seen from the outside. Smaller, certainly, a twinkling gilded city floating alone in the vastness of space, nearly swallowed by the hungry void that gnawed at its edges. Nevertheless, it still shone bright, a sun in the weary nighttime. From this distance it looked like a shining jewel, priceless yet small enough it could fit in the palm of his hand.    
  
All of his childhood, every one of his defining experiences (or, at least, all the ones he wished to remember) happened here. This was where he played tag with Thor in his mother's gardens, learned to spar and to control his magic, played tricks on the nobles and servants and guards. No other place meant so much to him.    
  
He may not be Aesir, but Asgard was his home.    
  
They did not have too much time for reflection, though. He could feel the hum of the Tesseract vibrating against his skin as they approached, so it stood to reason his uncle was already here.    
  
Loki and Rocket had managed to finish nearly a dozen guns in short order once the prototype was designed. The effort of imbuing so many items with such a powerful spell in a short amount of time left him exhausted, but it was a satisfying sort of exhaustion, the kind one might feel after a long day of of physical conditioning. To look at Rocket, he felt the same way. By the last few they had been too tired even for their otherwise constant bickering.    
  
"So here we are," Quill said, gesturing to the distant city and raising one hand to shield his eyes from the glow. "How do you want to handle this?"   
  
"With stealth, Loki said almost immediately, and was gratified when no one had any immediate objections to the proposal. "I'll hide our approach from any who may be watching. Once we touch down I can hide us individually, as well. You all take one of the guns and..." He grinned. "I'll distribute the rest. We wait for the opportune moment and then we all strike at once and catch them off guard."   
  
Thor would have laughed at that suggestion, complained there was no honor in it, and forced Loki to come up with something that would involve more head-on collisions without getting any of their little group killed.    
  
Thor wasn't here.    
  
_Norns_  Loki hoped he was all right.    
  
He looked to the viewscreen Asgard again, which had grown significantly with their approach, reminding himself that his brother was there and Loki would see him soon.    
  
"And the rest?" Drax asked.    
  
Loki grinned savagely. "We make it up as we go along. Anything so long as Thanos' plans are utterly and completely ruined."   
  
Drax grinned right back at him, as did Quill, and the viciousness in Gamora's smile surprised him. It was a near-perfect mirror of his own, filled with dark satisfaction, an almost wicked glee at the thought of their enemy's downfall.   
  
He supposed spending time around Thanos did that to a person.    
  
"Sounds like my sort of plan," Rocket chimed in approvingly.   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
Thus agreed, they grinned at each other once more before preparing to touch down.   



	10. Chapter 10

He expected to feel satisfaction.   
  
Here were the parts of the plan he relished most in the imagining. The ones who wronged him were helpless to stand against him now. Even without the boy as a hostage (and hadn't he just handed Loki that advantage, rushing in unprepared?) Odin would be hard pressed to face down him and Hela together. A bitter part of him had always suspected that to be the true motivation for banishing his children—fear that should they join together to bring Asgard down, nothing could stand in their way.   
  
If that were true, they were about to see just how right he had been.   
  
_You never would have needed to worry before, brother. I would never have turned against you._   
  
Hadn't he?   
  
No. Odin had broken that trust first, and had he not done so...   
  
Well. A lot of things would be different.   
  
Something prodded his leg, and he snapped to the present to find Hela nudging him with her shoe.   
  
He took a deep breath and marched out of the vault, dragging his last nephew with him.   
  
"No!" he shouted when Hela lunged instinctively for the guards that startled as they came into view, lowering their spears or scuttling off to get reinforcements. "We want an audience. This won't be near as fun if everyone is dead before we even start."   
  
"Speak for yourself," she grumbled, and he remembered that they had started calling his little girl the goddess of death. One more reason to hate Odin, as though he needed another.   
  
She listened, though, because she was a good girl, and the crowd of guards grew denser as they walked. The Einherjar formed a perimeter and kept pace with them, but they didn't try to impede their progress or attack. No doubt they were acting out some unspoken command from Odin. Yes... watch, wait, search for an advantage you can exploit before acting. That sounded like his brother, all right.   
  
He wound his way unerringly through the halls, towards the surface. It was no surprise that he still knew the way. Millennia had passed since his last visit to Asgard, but Asgard was like that. It never _changed_.  Golden realm, indeed. It reminded him of a bug caught in Amber. Beautiful, yes, gilded but stagnant, not rotting away but not growing, either. Never dying only because it was too perfectly preserved to truly still be alive. He would be accused of the death of Asgard, but the truth was Asgard was dead already. The only difference was that right now, none could tell.   
  
By the time they broke into the sunlight, their entourage had grown from a few guards to a massive crowd, and a significant fraction of Asgard's warriors milled around them. None came too close, for Hela's dead guards formed an inner perimeter, shielding him, his hostage, Hela, Odin and Frigga from the rest of the crowd. They were taking their cues from their king, and Odin hadn't challenged him yet.   
  
"Friends," he said, using a bit of magic to amplify his voice and make sure it carried around the courtyard. The furious muttering of the warriors quieted, though he could feel the heat of the anger in their gazes. "Countryme—no, we are not that." He let his form flicker for a second, allowing his true appearance to wash over him in an instant, with its Jotunn blue skin, the scars that still faintly marked the edges of his lips, the height Odin's son hadn't quite matched. A shocked, angry mutter rewarded the revelation.   
  
"Some of you may remember me as Loki Laufeyson, blood brother to Odin Borson. Others may know me by less kind names. Loki, Mother of Monsters. Loki Trickster, World-destroyer, Doom-bringer. Bane of Baldr. Many of you, I suspect, have never heard of me at all."   
  
He let his eyes skim the faces of his audience, the warriors of Asgard fixing him with their full attention. Some few, the eldest in the crowd, he suspected, wore masks of dawning horror. The younger warriors wore emotions that ranged from anger to confusion. He caught the eye of a shield-maiden, possibly the only one in the gathering, and winked at her to watch her face flush with rage.   
  
"Whether you think you know all there is to know of me or did not know until now of my existence, all of you will learn. Listen, children of Asgard, for this is a tale worth hearing." He settled into the natural rhythms of a storyteller, ignoring Hela's impatient sigh. "It is a tale of family, and of betrayal. It is a story of vengeance, and of your impending defeat at my hand. And it is a story of mercy, as I will give your defeated city over to my daughter to rule as she wishes, for she desires it to be so, and not present you as an offering to the Lady Death as I originally planned.   
  
"Now," he said, when the stony glares were all upon him. "Where to begin?"   
  
He told them of his and Odin's adventure when they were young, though he kept it brief, as there was no point getting lost in nostalgia for better days. He told them of his children, how his love for them had been disregarded and Asgard had cast them out. He told them of Baldr, of spending days working out a way around the Allmother's spells of protection, of giving the resultant weapon to Hod that he might win his vengeance over affairs involving some maiden whose name Loki no longer remembered.   
  
He told them about his imprisonment, cold, endless years with naught but the void for company.   
  
He was telling them of his plans for Asgard when Odin interrupted.   
  
"Brother," he shouted, disrupting his momentum as though he believed that meaningless word could still sway him, "there is no need for this."   
  
Loki laughed. "Well, pardon me, I suppose you're right. I have no reason to be angry, I'll just forego my vengeance, decades in the planning.   
  
"No." He could feel his eyes burning, imagine how they must be filled with madness, and good. Let them all know what he was capable of. "I will have my revenge, against you first, _brother_ , then all of Asgard.   
  
"You will know what it is like to be alone and abandoned in the void. You shall know what it is like to be cut off from all hope of aid or comfort. But first, you shall know what it is like to lose all of your children at your own brother's hand."   
  
He smiled, then, a wild, intoxicating grin, and pulled Thor closer.   
  
"Two down, one to go, eh, Allfather?"   
  


* * *

  
Why did so many of Loki's plans lately involve sneaking up on absolutely terrifying women? It had to say something about his mental state, and nothing good, he was sure.   
  
"Be still," he muttered as the fingers of one invisible hand curled around Sif's mouth. With the other, he pressed the weapon into her hand. She jerked once but went still, and he thanked anyone listening that those years when they had been shield-companions, when they'd trusted each other by default, hadn't been entirely forgotten by her warrior's instincts.   
  
"Loki?" she breathed, and she sounded... hopeful. He pressed the gun to her palm again and this time she took it, exhaling slowly.   
  
He hadn't made her invisible, exactly, but he was sending out some pretty strong mental signals that she was uninteresting and people should focus their attention elsewhere. Which wasn't hard to do, not with the scene unfolding at the center of the crowd, his own voice, harsher and angrier than he ever remembered making it, ringing out over the silence.   
  
He passed weapons to Sif until they all were distributed, first to the Warriors Three, who did an admirable job of restricting their curiosity to raised eyebrows when Sif apparently pulled enormous magical guns out of thin air, and then to other warriors in the area whose aim and ability to keep a cool head were trusted. Somewhere behind a true glamour Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot were waiting, armed with guns of their own.   
  
When he finished handing out weapons he made his way toward his own voice, ignoring the sick feeling rising up in his throat as he listened. The skeleton soldiers of Hela's undead army didn't so much as twitch as he slipped between them and stood in the circle where his uncle had a knife to his brother's throat.   
  
"Two down, one to go, eh, Allfather?" he was shouting, and so much anger burned in Odin's face Loki was surprised the paving stones didn't melt at the impostor's feet and swallow him up. His mother's eyes shone like she was crying, reddened like she had been for some time, but the hard lines of her face said that wouldn't stop her from yanking the man's heart out through his throat given the chance. Something in Loki's heart quailed to see his parents' anger, even if it wasn't directed at him. Well, it almost was; his uncle wore a replica of his own face, identical except for the madness shining behind the grass green eyes. He held Thor pinned against him with one arm like a human shield, facing their parents with the point of a very sharp dagger pressed under his chin. The point of the blade dug in, making shallow cuts whenever the false-him laughed.   
  
_Yep, there's fuel for least ten years of therapy right there_ , something in his head said in Rocket's voice.   
  
"Of course, you'll be the first one I kill directly," the not-Loki went on, speaking into Thor's ear almost conspiratorially, the gesture too familiar. "Everyone always blamed me for your elder brother's death, but Baldr was not actually my fault, whatever the righteous people of Asgard like to think. Hod hated him before I armed him, and one does not usually credit the weapon-maker for the warrior's kills. But my dearest brother had to lay that blame at my feet, else he would have no excuse, no purported reason to cast me aside!" His voice had risen steadily as he spoke, and now he was shouting, fixated on Odin, glare as sharp as the dagger he held.   
  
Loki edged closer, looking for an opening, but careful not to brush up against anyone and risk breaking the spell that kept him hidden. He couldn't move now. Not when he wasn't sure if he'd be fast enough to keep from having to watch as his own hand slit his brother's throat.   
  
"Please," Odin said suddenly, and his voice was deceptively soft. "You've made your point, brother. Let the boy go."   
  
The not-Loki _laughed_ , so filled with hate he almost couldn't identify the sound. "Like you let my children go when I asked you, _brother_? When I begged you to release Fenrir. To free Jormungand. To stop riding _Sleipnir_  like a common beast of burden! Never forget it was you who started this, brother."   
  
The knife pressed tighter.  Loki was starting to think he'd have to take his chances, to trust his reflexes and the element of surprise to keep Thor in one piece.   
  
"I was wrong," Odin said, his voice soft, like he meant to tame a spooked animal and not negotiate with a crazed killer.   
  
"Yes," the older Loki spat, "you were. Don't think I'm going to change my mind because you've finally realized the obvious. Now," he turned slightly, dismissing Odin and looking back to Thor. "Where was I?   
  
"Yes, your younger brother. Technically I didn't kill him either. Technically. Do you want to know what I did?"   
  
The sound Thor made contained so much rage, stifled as it was, that the smile dropped for a second from the impostor's face, replaced by a flash of alarm before he tightened his hold and the smugness crept back across his features.   
  
"I gave him away," he said simply. "As a gift. To Thanos, the Titan." His gaze flicked back up to Odin, searching. "You know what he likes to do with his toys, do you not, brother? At least, if the stories are true. I'm inclined to think that they are."   
  
His smile vanished with an alarming suddenness, and he fixed the king with a serious look.   
  
"He hated you, Allfather." The impostor who looked like Loki shifted, slicing deeper into Thor's skin. Droplets of his blood ran down the blade and over the impostor's fingertips, staining them a deep red. "Not as much as I do, but still he hated you. I almost spared him, for that. I wonder what he would do if he were here now? Join us and take up arms against you?  Laugh to see you helpless? To see his own hated brother brought low?" The knife shifted a fraction in his grip, slipped just a hairsbreadth in the slick coating of Thor's blood, but Loki was close and it was enough.   
  
He threw off the glamour as he drove his own dagger into the impostor's shoulder, hitting exactly the right spot to send the knife tumbling out of limp, nerveless fingers. The crowd drew back, for a split second too shocked to react. "I'd tell you," he hissed, "to keep your misbegotten hands off my brother!"   
  
Chaos erupted.   
  
Thor stumbled forward and Odin caught him before he fell. Hela screamed in rage, the sound cut short by something he couldn't twist to see. The silent crowd around him exploded into sound, shouting and scuffling and the ring of steel. He paid attention to none of it, his focus on the uncle who still could've passed for one of his illusory doubles if not for the very real blood staining the shoulder of his armor.   
  
The elder Loki twisted around faster than thought, wrenching away the knife buried in his shoulder. Another appeared in his hand as he spun, jet black and evilly spiked, and Loki just managed to twist away. The blade scored a shallow cut above his ribs and he brought his arm down to trap it in a move that, on the practice grounds, would have flowed into an effortless disarming motion.   
  
His uncle was fast, though, and an instant later arm and knife were gone. Loki blinked. He hadn't pulled away, and it took him a moment to process the enormous black and green snake lunging at him from where his uncle had stood. He reached for his own magic and a second later he flew under the serpent's strike, feathered wingtips brushing against its armored skin before he allowed scales of his own to wash over his body, growing and sinking dragon's talons into the base of the serpent's skull.   
  
It shrunk and twisted away from him, elusive as smoke, and the claws of an ice panther sliced into his leg before he called to himself the shape of a flaming wolf.   
  
Loki had fought other magic users before, but never one so strong or with power and strategy so like his own.  Beneath the madness, fatigue rested heavy on his uncle's stolen features, and Loki had surprised him and dealt him a not insignificant injury. But neither exhaustion nor injury had slowed him down, and both Lokis parried and ducked and twisted and changed barely a step ahead of certain death. A missed step would kill either one of them.   
  
It was only that, the necessity to change into one shape before he had fully assumed another, to deflect a column of flame on a hastily erected shield, that kept Loki's rage at bay. This usurper had threatened his _home_ , hurt his _family_ , and he'd done it wearing Loki's face like a cheap mask.   
  
He would pay. Loki dodged a chitinous spear and just missed crushing the oversized insect with the swing of a rock troll's massive fist. He would. Loki would make sure of it. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so just as a warning, there is a bit below where a character isn't sure what's real. I could see that possibly being a problem for someone, so fair warning.

Thor was hallucinating.   
  
It was a shame, really. The hope that had surged inside of him when he heard his brother's voice, and defending him, no less, had been so overwhelming it was almost painful. The wash of emotions had sent him staggering as surely as the sudden release of his uncle's paralysis spell.   
  
That should have been his first clue. Loki was... not here, and he shied away from the rest of that thought, as he must if he was to hold on to what little was left of his sanity.   
  
Either way, neither brother nor uncle were in evidence now. He supposed one had been replaced by the half cat, half lizard creature currently snapping at the silver-black wolf that could only be the other. Which was which, he couldn't possibly guess.   
  
A warrior stumbled back into him, pressed by one of the armored skeleton soldiers that made up Hela's army. Without thinking, he summoned Mjolnir, swinging it and crushing the creature's ribcage as soon as it slapped into his palm.   
  
When did the hallucination start, he wondered? Norns, let it have started early. Before his crazed uncle and possibly undead sister threatened his home. Before his brother turned out not to be his brother, his true brother probably... no, he couldn't go there, not now.   
  
What he wouldn't give to have it be years ago, before his brother fell in the first place.   
  
The skeleton warriors he fought, though, felt startlingly real. The shattering of their bones before Mjolnir, the hollow clang as breastplates and helmets crumpled, the jar of the impacts as they reverberated through the bones of his arm—the illusions were stunningly tactile. That he should feel them so distinctly, that they should seem so real, perhaps...   
  
A skeleton warrior in front of him disintegrated in a flash of blinding light. He blinked and followed the trajectory back to a large Midgardian rabbit, clutching a weapon and crowing in triumph as it clung to a mid-sized tree.   
  
The tree stalked past him, growling softly, then threw back its head and let out a bellowing battle cry proclaiming itself a groot.   
  
Definitely hallucinating, then.   
  
"Thor!" He spun at the sound of his name, turning just in time to see another wave of unbearably bright light collapse a skeleton soldier into dust.   
  
"Sif?" He threw the hammer past her, watched almost absently as it bounced off an armored skull, and caught it on the rebound. "A tree just walked by, battling with the ferocity of an Asgardian warrior. Did you see?"   
  
She nodded, raising the weapon to her side and collapsing another skeleton without looking. "Thor, we need to help the Allfather."   
  
"Hmm?" He hit another skeleton. It was cathartic, really. Or it would be, if he were feeling the anger he would if this were real and not a hallucination.   
  
"He battles Hela," Sif said, sounding annoyed. "She has great power and I fear—"   
  
To his left a warrior—Fandral?—caught a glancing blow from one of the undead soldiers and nearly fell over backwards, cracking him over the head with one of the guns everyone but him now suddenly seemed to have.   
  
"Ow," he said, raising a hand to his temple. That hurt. That felt _real_.   
  
Everything around him sharpened, drawing suddenly into focus. If this was real...  Sif was right to be concerned for the Allfather, and he searched out his father's familiar form among the chaos of the battlefield.   
  
There—Thor saw him raise Gungnir, waving the spear and deflecting a wall of at least a half-dozen daggers as they flew through the air. Frigga stood nearby, keeping the undead soldiers from approaching her husband's back as he fought, disintegrating any who got too close with sharp bursts of magic. Every so often, her eyes would flicker over to the battle between the two shapeshifters, bright with worry.   
  
Thor almost altered his course. If this was real, it meant Loki was fighting the maniac who had held Thor hostage, and he was doing it on his own.   
  
But he hadn't been wrong earlier when he said at this point, there was no way to tell the two combatants apart. If he tried to interfere, he was just as likely to hurt Loki as to help him. He didn't think he could bear that, not after everything.   
  
Hela was screaming when Thor came to stand beside Odin, her words sharp and ragged.   
  
"You cast me out!" She punctuated the words by calling up a swirling black cyclone, daggers floating within it like particularly dangerous dust motes. "You decided you did not love me when you had no further _use_  for me!" Odin dissipated the tornado with a wave of his hand. "And the worst part?" Her voice dropped down, broken and raw. "You made me love you first. I loved you as a father, and you betrayed me." Wind that didn't exist tugged her cape into eddies, and dust swirled where her boots met the ground.   
  
One of the bright flash-guns went off nearby, and he might have imagined the slight flinch as Hela continued to glare.   
  
"Why did you discard me? Answer me!" The shadows near her jumped, and twin swords seemed to grow out of her arms at the wrist. They lengthened and flowed like oily black liquid to a point, sharpening as they coalesced. Thor was reminded of the ice-blades used by the Jotnar, grown out of their own flesh and essence. Just what, he wondered, was Hela made of?   
  
"Sif!" Thor said, looking around for his friend and spotting her a short distance off. It was a sudden thought, but they had little to lose if it failed. "Shoot Hela with the blaster."   
  
"It doesn't work on people, Thor," she said, vaporizing another skeleton warrior. "It's magic. It only works on the undead."   
  
"Is Hela not their queen?"   
  
She shrugged, and aimed the gun at his sister...cousin? before firing in a bright flash that made Thor blink.   
  
Hela reeled back, bristling with indignation as though someone had splashed a bucket of cold water on her face.   
  
"Again," Thor ordered, but Hela's attention was on them now. She rushed at Sif, and Thor managed at the last minute to deflect a blow from one of her wrist-swords with Mjolnir before it cut Sif in half.   
  
A blue flash of magic from Gungnir hit her from behind, and she whirled about, snarling, to face Odin.  She ignored the next two blasts from Sif's gun except to shiver involuntarily as the light washed over her.   
  
"It's not doing anything," Sif said, planting her feet wide and scowling in frustration.   
  
"Give it to me, I have an idea."   
  
A terrible idea, probably.   
  
When they were children, their mother had always warned them to be extra careful with magical things, not to break them. When they had gotten older and Loki started studying more serious spellcraft, he had given the same warnings with less gentleness, warning Thor never to break his more powerful magical artifacts because not only would Loki kill him, the magic contained within the object would all be released at once, often with explosive results. And that would probably kill him, depriving Loki of the pleasure.   
  
It would take a powerful magical artifact to do more than sizzle a little as it was smashed, but then it took a powerful magical artifact to work without direct input from a magic user at all. He could only hope this would do the trick.   
  
He grabbed the gun from Sif and ran, holding it dangling in one hand and Mjolnir in the other. Hela didn't even look up as he approached, her eyes fixed on Odin.   
  
She didn't speak, stopping a few paces off and lifting one blade to point at the center of his father's chest like a warning.   
  
Thor was close, and it had to be close enough. With an overhand swing he threw the gun so that it fell just short of where she was standing, rolling end over end and skidding to a halt.   
  
She didn't so much as blink when the magic-imbued metal clattered to the ground at her feet. She glanced down at it for a half-second, then ignored him once more. "I'm pretty sure that isn't how that's used, imbecile."   
  
He threw the hammer after it, hard enough to crush the metal and release the spell trapped within.   
  
He heard it before he saw it, a pressure against his eardrums like the coming of a vicious storm. A crack followed, like thunder, and the wave of light—   
  
It flashed bright enough to change the color of the sky for a split second, then didn't so much fade as fizzled inward, snapping and throwing off sparks like the edges of a burning parchment.   
  


* * *

  
Loki was losing.   
  
He was fast and vicious, driven as he was by rage, but his namesake had no less anger and centuries more experience. Both had wounded the other, torn through flesh with claws and fangs and blades, but Loki could feel his body and, more dangerously, his mind starting to slow. Adrenaline burned at the haze surrounding his thoughts but it encroached anyway, threatening to make him slip up.   
  
Truth be told, the version of him that fell into the void would probably have lost several times over already. He was using every move, every ploy, every trick he had picked up in Thanos' accursed arenas, moves the Aesir would have dismissed as cowardly and wrong. He'd had to learn quickly, there on that chunk of barren rock, to keep himself alive and to keep his body his own, flesh and blood instead of the metal enhancements that Thanos gifted to losing survivors. Those had frightened and repulsed him almost more than the thought of dying in one of those gruesome spectator battles. The Titan claimed it was to strengthen those who showed promise, but it felt like he was merely offering them to his lover piece by piece.   
  
Loki was using every dirty trick he had learned in the Sanctuary that was anything but, and yet he was still losing.   
  
Worse, he could feel the power of the Tesseract burning from where his uncle has secreted it away, somewhere like the dimensional pockets where he kept his own daggers and supplies. He hadn't given his uncle time to use it, pressing him to cut off the advantage, but with his slipping thoughts it was only a matter of time. The elder Loki would need at least a few uninterrupted seconds to draw from the Tesseract if he wished to do so safely. Any faster and he could not shield himself from the effects. He wasn't desperate enough to risk burning out himself, his mind, not now when it was becoming clear who was winning.   
  
Loki, on the other hand...   
  
His uncle shifted, fading from the frost giant that was probably actually his true form to take on Loki's skin once more. His own face snarled at him as two daggers materialized and stabbed toward his chest.   
  
Loki took his own form as well, all but ignoring the daggers as he surged forward, unarmed. He knocked the knives aside with an armored forearm at the last second and one tore through the leather of his vambrace, opening a deep cut along his wrist. The other scored along his upper arm as he pressed in closer, reaching with hands and magic for the cool hum of the Tesseract's energy.   
  
His uncle screamed in rage or pain as he tore into the dimensional pocket, pushing a knife he saw but didn't feel into his ribs as he took hold of that cool, deep reservoir of power. It was like holding an entire lake in your hands, vast and calm and teeming with life.   
  
He latched onto that power, pulling it to him with abandon, and the Tesseract's raw energy burned like he was trying to cup molten metal in bare hands, too painful for descriptors like hot and cold to hold any meaning. Once it was gathered he threw it wildly at his uncle. The older Loki had no time to react.  He heard a scream before all of his senses contracted like he was folding inward, and he sincerely hoped he wasn't the only one who fell when everything burned to white.   


* * *

  
  
Dust and rubble drifted to the ground as Thor pushed himself up on one elbow, trying to force the ground under his feet to stop its dizzy spinning. The battle continued around him, but for the moment he remained in the pocket that had been cleared by Odin and Hela's duel, which neither undead warrior nor Asgardian had dared approach too closely. Hela lay a few feet from him, and she was breathing even if she didn't stir. Without her warrior's stance and the magic aura that had enveloped her like a second skin she seemed smaller, more fragile, her cloak spread like the feathers of a wounded bird, dark against the white stone.   
  
Farther away, his mother helped his father to his feet, and though he leaned more heavily on Gungnir than usual he seemed unhurt. Her worried eyes met his in unspoken question. He raised a hand in a small wave to let her know he was well and was rewarded with a small but genuine smile.   
  
The world gradually settled as he pushed to his feet. Afterimages from the bright light that bust forth when he exploded the gun still danced in his visual field, and he blinked like a newly awakened owl to clear them away.   
  
Somewhere away and across the battlefield, his brother screamed.   
  
It was nearly drowned out by the sounds of the battle with the skeleton army, though that was, near as he could tell, winding down now that Hela herself had been defeated. With the ringing in his ears he wouldn't have heard it at all if it had been anyone else.   
  
Thor _knew_  that scream. Loki very rarely was seriously hurt during one of their battles, given his proclivity for ranged weapons and the skill and speed with which he could dodge, but once or twice in the past he had been grievously injured by a foe too skilled or too numerous to be held back. After the first close call Thor had started keeping at least one ear open during any fight, waiting for a sound he hoped never to hear.   
  
He checked the horizon, but there were no dragons or direwolves or hawks the size of horses battling there, and something sunk in his stomach. "Please no," he begged, and his legs felt strange as he wandered, still in a daze, toward where he thought the sound had come from.   
  
A crash of metal inches from his ear drew him back to the present with a jolt. "Thor," Sif said as she neatly destroyed the undead warrior that had nearly decapitated him, "are you all right?"   
  
He didn't answer her. Up ahead he'd spotted a dark form collapsed among piles of rotted bone, and he surged forward with a cry that was equal parts anger and grief.   
  
When he reached the spot he realized that not one, but two copies of his brother lay sprawled on the ground, insensate and bleeding sluggishly from multiple wounds. Between them the Tesseract lay upended where it had fallen, casting a guttering blue light that flickered almost wearily.   
  
He dropped to his knees beside the more badly wounded of the two and searched until he found a weak pulse that fluttered against his fingertips. As soon as he assured himself they both lived—and so his brother, whichever he was, was alive—he tore the nearest cape into strips and started applying field dressings, using the familiar motions to steady his hands.  The fear that his brother would slip away while Thor tended the wounds of his murderer he resolutely ignored.   
  
There had to be some way to tell them apart—their wounds distinguished them, if nothing else, though Thor had seen only the first few seconds of the fight.  The cuts opened by those early strikes had long since closed, aided by magic, and since the injuries of the Aesir (or Jotnar, he reminded himself), rarely scarred, he could not rely on them to tell the two apart.   
  
Rarely, but not never. Scars could persist when a wound was dire enough...or when a sorcerer wished them to.   
  
He cupped both of his brother's hands in his, running his thumbs over the smooth, unmarked palms. He reached out and turned over the hands of the other. The right was identical, but along the palm of the left ran a thin white scar, raised just slightly from the surrounding skin.   
  
The place where he and Odin had become blood-brothers, slit their palms and let the blood mingle to seal the oath that made them family. On the left hand, so forged in the fire of battle, designed so that each could still hold a weapon unimpeded while the cut was healing. It would have meant something to both of them, so they'd have used their magic to make it scar, leaving a tangible reminder of their oath and their bond. Thor had seen his father's own scar in that same place often growing up, though he hadn't known its significance until much later.   
  
Maybe he should do the same with Loki, now that they knew they weren't already related by blood. Having that sort of constant, physical reminder might be good for the both of them. He'd bring it up if...when...Loki recovered.   
  
But for now he was glad they hadn't, because he knew without a doubt where his brother was. He circled one wrist with his hand so he could reassure himself of that weak pulse, and positioned himself facing most of the battle so he could defend them both from any attempted attacks.   
  
When Odin approached a couple of moments later and bent immediately to retrieve the Tesseract, Thor hated him a little.   
  
As though reading his mind, Odin fixed him with a sympathetic one-eyed stare. "I am sorry, but I must return Hela to her place before she awakens, or else we may find ourselves facing yet another battle." He tilted his head to where Frigga had knelt down beside their sister, presumably using magic to keep her asleep.   
  
Thor nodded, and he didn't miss the way their father's eye flickered to his unconscious brother, or the concern in that look.   
  
He remained where he was until the fighting faded away entirely. None of Hela's warriors bothered them, though if this was because Thor's friends kept them away or simply because they went overlooked, Thor couldn't say.   
  
The healers who descended like crows upon the field once the fighting had ceased took both his brother and his uncle with them, and he stood afterward in the ruined courtyard, staring off into space.   
  
A hand clapped him roughly on the shoulder, and he turned to see Sif, still holding one of the gun-weapons in place of her usual sword. How she had replaced the one he smashed, he didn't know. "Are you all right?" she asked, searching his face with evident concern.   
  
He considered lying, claiming he was fine, then shook his head and settled on "I am confused." Which wasn't what he meant to say, but it was certainly true.   
  
She snorted. "Aye, I can see that. The bards will have some untangling to do before they can sing any tales of what happened today."   
  
"I did not imagine the tree?"   
  
"You did not."   
  
"And my brother…"   
  
She hefted the gun. "He gave me this," she said. "I certainly didn't imagine that."   
  
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Thank you," he said.   
  
She reached out and squeezed his arm. "All will be well," she promised, and her smile was fierce.   
  
"You are a good friend, Sif," he said, covering her hand with his own.   
  
"Well this is sappy," said the large Midgardian rabbit. "Click. Click. Aww, it's broken. I can't change the channel away from all this dramatic garbage." He tossed away a small metal device, which clattered across the stones, then turned demonstratively and stalked off.   
  
Sif raised the gun and lowered it again. "Perhaps we should go inside now."   
  
"Yes," he said, eyeing the retreating rodent suspiciously. "I agree."   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we go! Thank you to all of the people still reading, and especially all of you who have taken the time to let me know you're still enjoying this fic. I appreciate all of you!
> 
> I feel bad for Thor in this one... everyone else has some kind of idea what's going on, but they've changed the story on him I don't even know how many times in the past 24 hours. Everyone's trying to get at everyone else and he's just kind of caught in the middle of it all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after all that action, here we have a chapter of... people talking. Enjoy!

The room in the healing wing felt more like a hastily constructed prison cell than an infirmary. Wards had been hastily scrawled on the ceiling, the walls, the doorframe and even the bed. Spells of suppression and of draining pressed against Odin's skin as he entered, suffocating like humid air on a hot day.  
  
Even so, his brother likely could have escaped were it not for the drugs and spells the healers used to keep him still while his injuries mended.  
  
Loki—and how long had it been since that name held that cadence, that intonation in his head?—Loki opened his eyes blearily, their dull, drugged sheen not hiding the hatred that burned behind them.  
  
"Brother," Odin said, and Loki snorted.  
  
"Don't pretend to care," he said, battling his own weariness to a sitting position. "We both have grown far too good at lying for something so obvious."  
  
Odin sighed. "Under other circumstances I would be happy to see you again. Tell me, how did you escape this time?"  
  
Loki met Odin's eye in the way that meant he was readying for a verbal blow, calculating to decide where to stab to hurt the most. "Your brat let me out," he said. "I shouldn't worry it'll happen again. Unless, that is, you intend to toss more of your children down into the void. I shouldn't think you have any left to spare. Just Thor now, isn't it?  
  
"Loki recovers," Odin said, drawing on years of practice to infuse the words with a confidence he didn't feel.  
  
"Oh? Has he woken yet?" Loki grinned when he hesitated. "I thought not. He used the Tesseract against me with no catalyst, no spell, not even the most pitiful of safeguards. I think we both know what that means, what he'll likely be if he even wakes."  
  
"The boy is a powerful sorcerer," Odin countered. "Much as you were at his age. Perhaps stronger."  
  
Loki's shoulders twitched, the closest to a shrug his drugged body could manage. "Even the strongest men burn when they touch fire."  
  
"He will recover fully," Odin insisted.  
  
"So your skill at deception comes from lying to yourself," Loki said. "And here I thought it was all the rewriting of Asgard's history and convincing kidnapped children you were their daddy."  
  
"Why, Loki?" The words came out nearly a plea, as though he were begging for an answer that wouldn't hurt them both worse. "There are so many better things you could have done with your freedom. Why this?"  
  
He smiled, lazy from the drug but still malicious, so different from the smiles they used to share in better days. "It has cost me nothing, for I have nothing to spend but time you've rendered miserable, and it has hurt you." He closed his eyes, and Odin saw the effort of will it took for him to relax, to smooth out his expression and leave behind an impassive facade. "I would gladly do it again, given the choice.  
  
"I needed you to regret, Allfather. To feel the pain I have felt these long years of my imprisonment. And though I have not accomplished that," he stared at the far wall, looking dazed and maybe, a little lost, "I have at last done something you cannot simply ignore."  
  
He looked up, and for a second Odin saw his brother, proud and defiant, before the drugged haze pulled him down again. "I don't care what you do to me. Kill me if you must. But Hela," he grimaced. "This was my doing. If ever you truly loved her as your daughter, don't punish her further for my actions."  
  
"She has already been returned to Niflheim," Odin said. "But," he added, resting a hand on Loki's shoulder, "I am thinking of sending her some company. Perhaps your time will not be so miserable if it is not spent alone."

* * *

  
  
When Loki woke it was all he could do to open his eyes.  
  
He didn't hurt, not really, but his entire body felt like the energy had been pulled from his very pores, and his muscles slumped uselessly in an induced lassitude. His eyes drifted closed once more. He was so tired, he had been tired for so long, he might have enjoyed it except—  
  
"Loki?"  
  
That was Thor. Part of him wanted to groan at hearing his brother's voice. At least this way, though, he knew the oaf had come out of the battle alive, and likely unscathed if he was here fussing. He could be grateful for that, he supposed.  
  
"Brother? Can you hear me?"  
  
He tried to move his lips to answer, but they were numb and unresponsive. He tried to remember what this feeling meant, why it seemed so familiar.  
  
"Please." Thor sounded...upset. More upset than he should be, certainly, with the both of them still alive and Asgard not destroyed.  
  
He forced his eyes open once more with an effort. They were met by shimmering golden light, which meant he was in the healing rooms. And...stasis field. That must be why it was so hard to move.  
  
"Say something, brother."  
  
It felt odd to be this frustrated with his brother without being able to tense, to clench his fists or grit his teeth. He wondered idly if this was what ghosts felt like, able to see and hear but not physically respond. With a huge effort of will, he moved his eyes so that he was staring straight at the dial that adjusted the field keeping him immobile. Hopefully his brother would get the hint eventually.  
  
"At least look at me. Please, Loki."  
  
He stared at the dial.  
  
"Father said...he said you used the Tesseract." Thor paused, and when he spoke again he sounded anguished. "He said that drawing from its raw energy could have damaged your mind. That you might not wake, or even if you did, the brother I knew could be gone.  
  
"I don't want to believe that, Loki." He reached out, squeezed Loki's limp fingers. "I want to believe I haven't lost you again so soon, not after everything."  
  
Loki stared even harder at the knob.  
  
Thor turned his head away, stared down at the ground but continued talking. "He says you would have known what you were doing. Known there was a possibility you wouldn't survive it. And I can't help but think...you let go, before. On the Bifrost. You let go then. Is that what happened now? Because if this is...if you wanted..." He choked.  
  
Thor looked again at his face, and he forced his eyes to meet his brother's before looking back to that stasis control dial.  
  
Thor's face brightened when he looked at him, and fell even further when he looked away, the idiot. He sighed, and his fingers brushed Loki's cheek.  
  
He poured ever bit of energy he had into the sharpness of his gaze, focusing with such intensity that were his magic within his grasp and not pooled into a lazy floating thing within him, the thing would probably have burst into flames.  
  
Thor frowned, and his gaze drifted up to where… he noticed where Loki was looking, and practically lunged forward to turn down the field.  
  
The massive weight in his limbs lessened, leaving behind a prickling like needles. "You're an idiot," he mumbled, and his voice was scratchy with disuse.  
  
Without warning his brother was squeezing him, and his ribs did _not_  care for that, thank you. "Gently," he managed to squeak out, and the grip loosened. "I am fine, Thor, and I certainly wasn't trying to get myself killed. The way the fight was going, using the Tesseract seemed my best chance at _not_  dying."  
  
His brother said something else, but it got lost in the general haziness of exhaustion that started creeping back in.  
  
A healer poked her head in the room then rushed forward, a rustle of skirts and terse words he couldn't quite make out. He caught the gist of it, though: the scolding, Thor's defensive reply, a brief argument before his brother was ushered from the room.  
  
His consciousness faded with the retreating footsteps, and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

  
The next time he awoke things were a little sharper, and the exhaustion, while still present, had ceased to swirl the fabric of reality at its edges.  
  
Also, his brother wasn't sitting at his bedside.  
  
Instead, his father sat in the chair Thor had occupied, dressed in plain leather instead of his usual plated armor but imposing still.  
  
He could pretend to be asleep, or...no, Odin had noticed him. He instinctively tried to push himself up on his elbows, stopped when the field of golden energy pinned him into place, and folded his arms over his abdomen instead. The silence stretched on and he allowed it to, waiting for his father to make the first move.  
  
"My brother said he delivered you to Thanos," Odin said after a long hesitation. Loki winced, as much as he was able at least. This wasn't something he wanted to talk about now, or ever. "Is this true?"  
  
He nodded, not trusting his voice.  
  
Odin's mouth set in a hard, firm line. "There are rumors about how the Mad Titan treats his...guests," Odin started cautiously.  
  
"I've no doubt they're all true," he said, "but I survived with no permanent damage." He nearly hadn't survived at all, several times, actually, but it wouldn't be particularly helpful to bring that up just now.  
  
Odin nodded. "And for that your mother and I are very grateful."  
  
"I shall give you what little I know about his capabilities, his position, his army, anything that can be used against him, though Gamora knows far more and would likely tell you if asked. She was in Thanos' clutches far longer than I and bears him no goodwill." Odin seem surprised at that, but he let it stand. Loki decided not to mention her title as Thanos' daughter—it was too easy to misconstrue, and he'd seen firsthand how Thanos treated his "children".  
  
"Beyond that, though, I'd prefer not to speak of those experiences. I am attempting to put them from my mind."  
  
Odin looked like he'd like to object, even started to open his mouth before closing it again and nodding in acquiescence. "Very well. But there are other things I need to know."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"Hela's army. The attack on Asgard. The weapons you and your new friends created. You seemed to know what to expect before the events themselves occurred. How?"  
  
"Ah. Perhaps this whole thing was my scheme, perhaps I set the whole thing up so I could play the hero, is that it?" He tried to make the words venomous, but they came out sounding bitter and resigned. Of course Odin came to that conclusion. Hadn't he done the same with Laufey, just before he fell? He'd suspect himself if he didn't know better.  
  
Odin shook his head. "I do not think so. I merely wish to know how the knowledge was obtained."  
  
"He told me his entire plan." When Odin frowned, he looked away, measuring his breathing and trying to ignore the prickles of shame in his gut. "That is the reason why I released him from his prison, or at least a good portion of the reason. He told me that there was a plot to overthrow Asgard, and that he knew everything about it. He swore he'd tell me all the details in exchange for his freedom. He swore it on his family and his magic, and I thought he was telling the truth.  
  
"Which he was, technically. There was a plan, and he told me of it, but it was his plan, and he never could have put it into practice had I left it alone. He tricked me." He bunched his hands into fists, squeezing handfuls of his blanket and shutting his eyes. "I'm sorry, Father. I should have known better."  
  
Silence. When he raised his eyes, though, guilt twisting his stomach, Odin's single eye twinkled with...mirth?  
  
"That does sound like him," his father said, and a hint of nostalgia tinted his words. "Always making bargains that didn't turn out how the other person expected and lying with the truth. I can't fault you for being tricked when I've fallen for quite a few of his schemes myself. Perhaps I shall tell you the stories, sometime, though as much as you love mischief I wonder if I should be giving you any ideas."  
  
Loki didn't feel he could answer that, so the conversation lapsed into awkward silence.  
  
"Can I... can I ask you a question?" Loki asked at last.  
  
Odin nodded. "Ask."  
  
"Why did you name me after...him." He found himself carefully studying his fingernails, picking at their edges.  
  
"For all that it ended badly between us, he is still my brother," Odin said softly. "I cared greatly for him and held him in high regard. The name was not meant as an insult, my son."  
  
"That's not the only reason though, is it?" He swallowed, hating the way his voice crackled with suppressed emotion. "Mother... she hates him. She would never have agreed."  
  
Odin paused; it was one of those rare times he stopped to gather up his words, to arrange them carefully like soldiers before sending them marching forth.  
  
"Your mother," he said carefully, "was hurt deeply by Baldr's death. She lost a child. As a parent, one does not fully recover from such a thing. In those early days she wore her devastation openly, and there were none in Asgard as did not know the depths of your mother's rage and sorrow."  
  
He shifted uneasily, the gesture so unlike him that Loki was taken aback. "I think that sometimes, in her grief, she forgot that I, too, had lost a child. Baldr was my son as much as he was hers. And after that, I had lost Hela, though to banishment rather than death. She was older when she came to me, already wild and violent, and Frigga never claimed her as I did."  
  
He looked up now, and met Loki's eyes. "When I found you as a babe after the war, alone in the snow, my brother's kin, I wanted to keep you, to raise you as my own.  
  
"Frigga wanted you as well. From the first moment I laid you in her arms, she wanted you. But I worried. The hurt from Baldr still festered inside her, all that anger, and you were my brother's blood. I feared that the first time you seemed to have too much of him, the first time she was made to remember, she would change her mind and wish to send you away.  
  
"Once I had made the decision to take you in, I could not have given you up." A heavy grief infused his voice, and for the first time Loki considered how much losing Baldr must have hurt his parents. How much of that old wound had he reopened with his intentional fall from the Bifrost? Odin's voice didn't shake, but neither was it perfectly steady. "I could not lose another child."  
  
He smiled faintly, and his eyes seemed to look to the past with fond remembrance. "I needed to know, from the start, if her love for you was stronger than her hatred of my brother. I insisted. Either we kept you as Loki or I would have given you to another couple to raise.  
  
"I needn't have worried. She never hesitated. I don't think the Valkyries themselves could have pried you from her arms. You could have grown into his exact likeness, in body and spirit, and her love for you would be no less."  
  
"And did I? Do I?" He flinched. "Do I remind you of him? Is that why..." was that why he had always preferred Thor, always treated Loki with wariness or dismissed him?  
  
"You remind me a great deal of my brother when we were younger. Which is no bad thing," he added when Loki's face fell. "Remember I liked him well enough to adopt him as my family, and I don't take that lightly. We were inseparable when we were younger, much like you and Thor. Though now I wonder," he said softly, "if I haven't projected too much of him onto you. My brother never cared for others' approval and did only as he pleased. It was one of his best and worst qualities. He would never have sought my approval, nor cared for it, nor compared himself to a brother whose talents lie in different arenas." The old king looked down, worrying the edge of his cloak with his hands. "He preferred the shadows because being underestimated often led to improbable victory. If he went overlooked it was by choice. Had I realized you were so different, perhaps I could have been a better father."  
  
Loki said nothing, but he blinked back the tears that clouded his vision and threatened to spill over.  
  
Odin reached over and very carefully brushed some hair away from his forehead. "Rest now, my child. You have done well, and I am proud of you."  
  
The tears did fall, then, in hot streams that trickled over his temples and pooled in his hair long after Odin had left.


	13. Chapter 13

The days passed quickly, and before long Loki had been moved from the healing chambers to his own quarters.  
  
Thor came often and sat with him, long after the novelty of having his brother be not-dead should have passed. Loki wondered if he was hiding from the immediate and frankly terrifying friendship that had formed between Gamora and the Lady Sif, who had teamed up to take down any group of three male Asgardian warriors who dared challenge them on the sparring field, starting with the warriors three.  Drax had carved a similar path of destruction through the training grounds, and his rather blunt commentary on his opponents, as related to him by Thor, was hilarious.  
  
Rocket had apparently spent most of his time antagonizing the team attempting to rebuild the Bifrost, suggesting engineering modifications that no one was certain whether he was serious about. Groot was most often found in the queen's gardens, exploring the flowers or just standing with his face turned up toward's Asgard's exceptionally bright sun. Quill, of course, followed after Gamora like a lovesick puppy dog, loudly cheering her victories in phrases so thick with Midgardian slang even the Allspeak couldn't translate them.  
  
Today they had let him out into the gardens, a sure sign that he was nearly healed. Under most circumstances he suspected he would have been fully released already, but if his mother was feeling a bit protective yet he couldn't exactly blame her.  
  
Groot was sunning himself in a far corner, and he sported quite a few more leaves than when Loki had seen him last. They rustled in the mid-morning breeze, while Groot himself held as still as the trees that surrounded him.  
  
Loki was sitting on the edge of a fountain and staring into the water. The stonework had been designed so that the clear liquid ran down in twisted rivulets, churning and constantly changing their shape. It seemed a good reflection of his mind right now, of his ever-changing thoughts that twisted themselves down different paths each time he attempted to trace them. His father had apologized, or as near an apology as he was likely to get out of the old king, for not knowing him well enough, but at the moment he wasn't sure how well he knew himself.  
  
He dipped his fingers in the water, freezing a small amount of it into ice. The small shape bobbed along until it was carried away by the current, and the water looked the same as it had before.  
  
Was it possible to do the same thing with a piece of your life? To let time flow around it and wash it away,  until even the scar it had left was gone? To allow yourself the flexibility to change until a person you never wanted to be didn't exist anymore?  
  
Loki didn't know, but he found himself wishing it was.  


* * *

  
  
  
Thor found his brother in the gardens. He had panicked for a second when Loki was not in his rooms, and had been leaning out the window and praying not to see his brother's broken form on the rocks below (he'd fallen once before, and Thor didn't think he'd ever entirely get over that) when a servant told him Loki had gone out to spend some time in the sunshine.  
  
He found his brother sitting on the edge of one of Mother's fountains, running a finger through the cold clear water that left little eddies of ice in its wake. Loki looked up and mumbled a distracted greeting as he approached, but turned his attention back to the running water. He didn't respond when Thor told him the tale of the epic sparring match from earlier in the morning when Volstagg had been bested by Loki's large blue-and-red friend, nor when Thor trailed off and allowed the silence to stretch between them.  
  
"Are you angry, brother?" Thor asked eventually, careful to keep his tone neutral.  
  
For a second it seemed he wouldn't answer, and when he did, it was so quiet the sound of the fountain almost drowned it out. "Yes, Thor, I believe I am."  
  
Thor winced. "What angers you?"  
  
Loki turned to him completely then, and gave him a sharp look. "You do not think I have reason?"  
  
"You have many reasons to be angry, brother. So many I am not sure which of them are foremost," he admitted ruefully.  
  
"Very well. I am upset that I have been lied to for so long. About my heritage, our family history, and the history of Asgard. I am angry that I allowed myself to fall into the void, and that...and about how that ended." Loki looked several shades paler as he mentioned it, and Thor would have to get the full story from him, distasteful as it surely would be. The time for that would come, but not here, not now, not when he had just gotten his brother back. "I am angry that our uncle stole my face and used it to attack two realms. And I am furious that he attacked my family."  
  
"I am responsible for none of those things!" Thor protested.  
  
Loki gave him that sideways look again, the one that said 'you're an idiot but you're my idiot so I won't stab you anyplace fatal'. "Obviously, Thor. I never said I was angry with _you_."  
  
"You are not?"  
  
"I'm a bit upset that you got yourself captured and held at knifepoint," Loki said, "but I'm not exactly one to cast stones, there. As for the rest? You are correct, they were not your doing. Blaming you would be convenient but unfair."  
  
"But I believed he was you! He did all these horrible things and I did not think to question. I should have had faith—"  
  
Loki was laughing. The sound was quiet and Thor suspected it pulled taut at least one healing injury, but Loki was laughing.  
  
"Thor," he said, using his thumb to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, "you are incredibly easy to fool. It is one of my favorite things about you, and I'm not about to start resenting you for it."  
  
"I should have known!" Thor cried. "I should know my own brother!"  
  
"You're right," Loki said, going quiet, and the humor faded away. "You should have anticipated that I would be replaced by an evil shapeshifter neither of us knew existed. In fact, how dare you not expect the possibility. Perhaps I should find myself a new brother who considers such inevitable eventualities." Loki's face was perfectly calm, considering, and he looked at Thor as though sizing him up to trade in.  
  
"Are you mocking me?"  
  
"Only when you deserve it, brother." He smiled again, but then it faded away, replaced by that faraway look before his eyes dropped back into his lap. "If anything, I would think you have reason to be angry with me."  
  
"You saved my life," Thor said, frowning.  
  
"And I nearly took it, as well. With the Destroyer, on Midgard." Loki took a deep, shaking breath. "I didn't mean for you to die, but I intentionally hurt you. I let the Frost Giants into the Vault and ruined your coronation, I goaded you into attacking Jotunheim and got you banished, I lied and told you Father was dead, and I fought you when you returned."  
  
His hands picked at the hems of his sleeves, and he didn't look up. "I had a lot of time to reflect on my actions, when I feared they may become your last memory of me. I know it doesn't mean much, but I am so sorry, brother."  
  
Without hesitating, Thor gathered him in an embrace that was probably tighter than it should be given his recent injuries.  
  
Loki spluttered for a moment before he managed a "what is wrong with you?" The words were sharp but he didn't push away, so Thor held on.  
  
"I just didn't think... I thought you dead, Loki, after you fell from the Bifrost. Then you were alive, and I was glad, but you were mad and attacking Midgard and you hated me, and then our uncle said he'd killed you, and then you were here in the healing rooms but you were so still and Father didn't know if you'd be yourself if you woke..."  
  
Loki was hugging him back now, letting him bury his face in the soft invalid's clothing covering his shoulder. He wasn't crying, the first prince of Asgard didn't cry, but he felt utterly raw nonetheless.  
  
"—it's all right, you idiot," Loki was mumbling, "most of that wasn't even real."  
  
"You let go," Thor said. "That was real."  
  
The silence stretched between them, and for a second Thor thought Loki would try to deny it, or to blame him as he--as their uncle had done in Midgard. "I did," he said at last. "I'm sorry."  
  
They stayed like that for a few moments more before Loki drew back, wiping at his eyes. "Thor," he said softly, "I've been thinking, and I believe it would be for the best if I were to spend some time away from Asgard."  
  
Thor felt his stomach clench, and his heart raced away without him. "Why? Everyone knows of our uncle's deception," he said, "and of the role you played in his defeat. None blame you for his actions. You are welcome here."  
  
"I know that, but...there are a great many things I need to work through, and for that I need space. As I said, I am still angry about rather a lot of things."  
  
"Where will you go?"  
  
Loki shrugged. "Alfheim, perhaps, or Vanaheim. Maybe I shall leave with the companions who brought me here, if they shall have me. There are many places I could go."  
  
"What about Midgard?" Thor asked suddenly.  
  
"What about Midgard?"  
  
"The Bifrost is still damaged, and it will be some time before it is repaired even with the Tesseract, but you could take us there, could you not? It would be right of us to provide aid in undoing the damage our uncle has wrought, and the realm itself is so very different from the last time you visited. We could take a small group to assist in repairs to the city, and it would be far from Asgard. I believe you would enjoy it."  
  
Loki was giving him the "you're missing something so obvious I can't believe you need me to explain it" look, and Thor grew defensive. "What?"  
  
"I very much doubt I would be welcome there just now. So far as everyone knows, all the damage of which you speak is my fault."  
  
Thor waved a hand. "Do not worry about that. I shall explain the truth of the matter to my friends."  
  
Loki raised his eyebrows. "I think I shall accompany you, then, if only for how very badly I want to see this."  
  
"It is settled, then," Thor declared. "We go to Midgard."  
  
"Where are you guys going?" Thor started, but it was only Loki's Midgardian friend, the one who called himself Lord of the Stars.  
  
"Midgard," Thor repeated.  
  
"Terra," Loki added, "or Earth, whichever you prefer."  
  
"Wow," he said, "you can do that? I mean, I don't see any spaceships here and Earth's really far away..."  
  
"We have means to travel there near-instantly," Thor said, and wondered why all the humans always seemed so surprised by this.  
  
"Wow," he said again, "so how's the Earth doing these days? I mean, I haven't been there since the eighties, so..."  
  
"We go now to help them rebuild after a mighty battle," Thor said, "in which many of Earth's greatest heroes fought valiantly. You should take great pride in your home."  
  
"Well, it isn't really my home anymore." He rubbed the base of his neck. "But it's nice to know they're doing okay. I did grow up there, after all."  
  
"You should join us!" Thor boomed. "Come and see how it has changed in your absence."  
  
He looked torn, and Thor recognized it as the look of someone who wanted something but was about to refuse. He knew that look from centuries of trying to figure out whether Loki was sincere when he said he didn't want to accompany them on a quest, that he'd rather stay in the library instead and study a new dialect of old elvish.  
  
He didn't get the chance to refuse, though. "I think that sounds like a great idea," a voice said from behind them, and they spun to find Gamora walking down a small garden path, Sif beside her. "I'd love to see your home, Peter, and after all this we could use a vacation."  
  
"And I should like to meet your new shield-companions, Thor," Sif added, grinning a grin that made him wonder if he should hide the more breakable members of the Avengers somewhere safe until after the visit was over.  
  
"Rocket would probably get into trouble," the Star Lord offered, though he sounded unsure whether this was an argument for or against going.  
  
"I am Groot," the large tree put in from somewhere nearby. It took Thor several seconds to spot him amidst the rest of the greenery.  
  
"You all shall accompany us," Thor said with a ring of finality. "Midgard shall be glad of having so many esteemed visitors."  
  
"If you say so," Loki muttered, but he looked happy.  
  
Thor squeezed his brother's shoulder and smiled.

* * *

  
  
They called Fury to tell him that a new party was assisting with the repairs in New York.  
  
He told them repairs weren't his division and hung up on them.  
  
The called him back and told him the new party was made up of magic space Vikings, which were very much his division and that was why they called him.  
  
He faked his own death, moved to the Bahamas and made everything Coulson's problem.  
  
Well, he didn't really, but it was tempting.  
  
Six hours and a last-minute plane flight later, he was once more at ground zero of the destruction, standing with his arms crossed as, sure enough, honest-to-goodness Vikings in Comic-Con armor hauled chunks of debris far larger than they should be able to pick up, smiling and laughing and singing far too loudly for as little sleep as he'd gotten.  
  
It wasn't too long before he spotted a familiar blond natural disaster ambling among the rubble of this profoundly unnatural disaster. "Thor," he said, and the man turned, smiling widely and swinging around a stone column that had to weigh more than some automobiles.  
  
"Director Fury! I am pleased to see you."  
  
"Thor, what exactly is going on here?"  
  
"Asgard sends us to aid your realm in rebuilding." He swept a hand to indicate the happy, industrious Vikings picking their way over the rubble like tanned and muscular Norse ants. The stone pillar was still balanced on a broad shoulder, and if hauling around a half-ton of rock gave him any sort of discomfort, it didn't show.    
  
Fury pinched the bridge of his nose. "Next time do you think you could give us a little heads up before you bring a bunch of aliens into my city?"  
  
That made Thor frown, at least, and put down the rock. "It was not our intention to give offense. We hoped to bring aid as soon as possible. I felt it was our duty, given Asgard's role in the damage to your city."  
  
Right. One of your people breaks the city, and so of course we want a bunch more of you here. He could fake the evidence, leave a note, find a beach. Leave Hill to deal with the alien clean-up crew. Thor kind of had a point, though. It was one of them that caused all this trouble, so pitching in with clean-up seemed the least they could do.  
  
Speaking of...  
  
A string of curses that would have given Captain Rogers a heart attack curled through his mind when he saw the dark figure standing by a cluster of Stark's emergency generators. No way. No freaking way.  
  
The man's head tilted toward them and yes, that was unmistakably Loki.  
  
"Thor," he said, gritting his teeth, "what is your homicidal maniac of a brother doing here?"  
  
Thor had the gall to look offended, but it wasn't him who answered. "Cooling down the generators, apparently," came a metallic voice from above their heads. "Using his magical ice princess powers. I haven't heard any 'Let It Go' happening over there yet, but it's probably a just matter of time."  
  
"Stark," Fury said slowly and deliberately, "let's try this again. Why is the known supervillain walking free in the middle of the disaster he created?"  
  
Tony shrugged, of course. "Ask Thor."  
  
"It was all a misunderstanding," Thor said, as though that explained everything.  
  
What.    
  
"So your brother killed dozens of people, stole a weapon of unimaginable power, brought an alien army to our planet, tried to _conquer the human race_  and now it's all a misunderstanding and you let. Him. Go?"  
  
Thor didn't even have the decency to look sheepish. "It was not him," Thor assured. "Merely a shapeshifter who appeared to be him."  
  
Fury stared at him, dumbstruck, trying to decide if he was joking or really that gullible. "Coulda fooled me."  
  
His expression changed, and now he looked mournful and... guilty? "Aye, we were all of us fooled, though you had little cause to know better as you did not know my brother before this. I should not have been so quick to assume him mad."  
  
"And how do you know it was this shapeshifter who did the invading?"  
  
Thor blinked. "He admitted to it, before my true brother returned."  
  
Okay, this was getting more and more ridiculous. And alarming. "And that didn't seem suspicious at all to you?"  
  
Thor's expression darkened. "What are you implying—"  
  
"He wants to know if I was indeed responsible for the invasion, and simply tricked you into releasing me using a fabricated story." Fury started, and his glare redoubled. Sneaky little bastard creeping up on him. "If it helps," Loki added, "I have an alibi."  
  
"I'm sure you do," Fury muttered. "Let's hear it."  
  
"I was on a spaceship with the Guardians of the Galaxy, building a Zombie Blaster in collaboration with a cybernetically enhanced raccoon."  
  
Thor nodded, seemingly satisfied, then looked at Fury as though to say 'see, now aren't you ashamed for doubting my brother's total innocence when he has such a great and plausible excuse?'.  
  
Fury considered returning to his original plan, minus the part where the death was faked.  
  
"And what happened to this shapeshifter who attacked our planet and supposedly wasn't your brother?"  
  
"He was banished." Something in his expression made Thor quickly add "not to Earth! To the wastes of Niflheim, along with our sister." He glanced over at Loki. "Cousin?"  
  
Loki shrugged. "Technically she's my niece."  
  
Thor frowned like he was trying to puzzle that out, then straightened. "In any case, they should not be able to return unless someone summons them with the Tesseract."  
  
"Or our uncle, who's already demonstrated an ability to subvert or escape from our strongest prisons, finds a way around the enchantments binding them there," Loki pointed out.  
  
"Or that," Thor conceded. "But that won't happen. Probably."  
  
"I hate my life," Fury said to the clouds.  
  
"You and me both, melancholy pirate," said a voice from somewhere atop a pile of collapsed sheet metal. "Groot! Stand over there so I can get down."  
  
"I am Groot," said a large tree as it walked toward their position. Loki sucked in his cheeks and bit back a laugh.  
  
"Now that's just rude," the first voice said, and whoever it was launched a bundle of fur that landed on the tree's shoulder.  
  
"Now where did that flying robot get to?" Or the voice belonged to the bundle of fur. It pointed past another scaffolding with a small paw tipped in blunt claws. "Let's go that way."  
  
"I am Groot."  
  
They ambled off.  
  
A cybernetically enhanced raccoon. Riding a talking tree. Of course.  
  
Loki was grinning like the little psycho he was. Or maybe that some random shapeshifter was. He did _not_ want to have this conversation with his superiors, nuh-uh.  
  
Thor clapped a hand on Loki's shoulder. "Shall we see if the Man of Iron has another task for us, brother?"  
  
Loki, in turn, snaked one hand up to squeeze the back of his brother's neck affectionately. "We shall." They wandered away together, both still smiling.  
  
Fury was going to retire to the Bahamas. For real this time. Just see if he didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you again to everyone who read and gave me feedback. You guys are the best.
> 
> I have some ideas that might turn into an actual sequel, if anyone wants one of those. I make no promises on how long that will take, though, as I've got several other projects in progress as well. 
> 
> In the meanwhile, I do have a collection of one-shots that take place on Earth, and I'll be posting the first of those probably sometime this next week. Most of them are somewhat lighter in tone, in part because I think these guys need a bit of a break and in part because, well, I was having fun. All of them will be posted to the series this work is a part of (though the name might change, if I think of something fun). 
> 
> Enjoy the rest of your day!


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